


but i came banging on the walls (like i heard your heartbeat call)

by writing_addict



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas, 七つの大罪 - 鈴木央 | Nanatsu no Taizai | The Seven Deadly Sins - Suzuki Nakaba (Anime & Manga)
Genre: (so does eli for that matter), Adventure & Romance, Clanswap AU, Elizabeth is High Lady of the Night Court, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Healthy Relationships, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Magic, Meliodas is Feyre, Mild Smut, Multi, Post-A Court of Thorns and Roses, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Roleswap, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Sort Of, Unhealthy Relationships, a court of mist and fury au, and then to, consider this like...the pilot episode of a show, depends on if i can write it, don't worry the zaneli and mel is only for the first few chapters, elizabeth and the night court make things better, im just posting this to see how things go, it's in the past but it's a fairly large part of the character's history, maybe? - Freeform, mel has ptsd, so it will be alluded to a fair amount, zaneli fucks up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-06-04 21:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 151,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15155711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_addict/pseuds/writing_addict
Summary: Seven months.It's been seven months since Meliodas killed a shapeshifting faerie and was taken to the Spring Court as penance. Six months since he burst into a place known simply asUnder the Mountainto face the self-fashioned High King of Britannia, six months since he agreed to Mael's demands--solve the riddle or win the three trials, and save the land of the Fae. Five months since he was hunted for the amusement of Mael's faeries, four since he formed his bargain for survival with the devastating and cruel Elizabeth. Three months since he stood before Mael on the day of that final trial and killed two faeries in cold blood, since he stabbed the woman he loved in the heart.Three months since he died, and was brought back as High Fae.And now it's time for happily-ever-after--right?Except Meliodas can't see the color red without panicking, and Zaneli's "protection" and "love" is starting to feel like a cage. Except the bargain he made to save them both is hovering around them like a dark cloud, along with the miasma of Zaneli's potent, deadly rage, about to damn them at any second.And when Elizabeth calls in her bargain--well, things get...interesting.





	1. Part One - House of Roses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A dear friend brought to my attention that my NNT readers may not have read A Court of Thorns and Roses, the events of which are essential to the worldbuilding and which I...neglected. So here's a dictionary, of sorts, that should provide you with everything you need to know! Also, rather than calling themselves men and women, since that's a human term (huMAN, see?), Fae call themselves males or females.
> 
> Britannia - a large island off the coast of the main continent, the majority of which belongs to Faeries  
> The wall - a magical barrier between the human and Fae realms established after the War five hundred years ago  
> The War - a conflict between Fae who sought to keep their human servant and a human-Fae alliance that fought for human freedom  
> The Treaty - the resolution of the War; created the magical wall that keeps Fae and humans away from each other  
> Fae - powerful, immortal beings that reside to the north of the wall in seven courts each ruled by a queen, or a High Lady  
> High Fae - the most human in appearance, and the most powerful race of Fae; generally make up the upper class  
> High Ladies - incredibly powerful High Fae females who rule one of the seven courts of Britannia  
> Erebus - an brutal, empirical island nation of Fae across from Britannia  
> Mael - a lieutenant of the King of Erebus who declared himself the king of Britannia, stripped the High Ladies of their power, and ruled for forty-nine years  
> Under-the-Mountain - Mael's hellish court beneath Britannia's sacred Mountain  
> Elizabeth - High Lady of the Night Court, forced to serve Mael during the occupation, widely regarded as the most powerful and mysterious of the seven High Ladies. Has a bargain with Meliodas Asmodei  
> Meliodas Asmodei - formerly human, passed three trials at the behest of Mael and died in order to free Britannia from him. Brought back by all seven High Ladies and Made into Fae, now known as Cursebreaker. About to marry Zaneli  
> Zaneli - High Lady of the Spring Court, extremely powerful and deadly, lover and soon-to-be wife of Meliodas. Right-hand female is Jenna  
> Jenna - Emissary of the Spring Court, formerly of Autumn. Good with a staff, has a metal eye, and takes shit from exactly one person and one person only.  
> High Priests - religious leaders of Britannia, claim to serve the Mother, creator of Fae, and the Cauldron, a magical...well, Cauldron that birthed the world from its depths. No one knows whether the myth is true, but all Fae swear by the Cauldron and the Mother

 I genuinely _despised_ my wedding ensemble.

 It was a monstrous creation, more like the wedding cake than a suit meant for the groom, all ruffles and glitter and tulle, fitted and poufy and absolutely _drowning_ me. It might have fit better before Under-the-Mountain, before Mael, before— _don’t think about that don’t think don’t think don’tthink—_ but right now it just highlighted how absolutely terrible I looked, the pure ivory-white of it all making me look sickly even without the addition of shadowed eyes and thin, trembling hands. No wonder Zaneli had burst out laughing at her first sight of it. Derieri, too, but at least the abrasive female had managed to get her snickers under control and help me dress, though their silence was probably because of Ludociel and whatever tale he planned the weave, the legend he wanted to present to the world today.

_Legend. Meliodas Cursebreaker._

_Me._

It was laughable, it was _stupid—_ I’d damned myself to save Zaneli, killed three innocents in cold blood and ripped myself to pieces and I’d _died,_ in the end, to save the land of Britannia and the Spring Court and even the other Courts, even that of—of _her._ And _that_ would’ve been a legend, that would’ve been retribution for the blood coating my hands (scarlet and dripping and smelling of a sickening iron tang, just like humans), but the High Ladies of each Court had seen fit to bring me back, to Make me High Fae…and now I was here, with Zaneli, about to marry her—and this was how it should be, wasn’t it?

_Was it?_

I fought back the doubt, ignored it as I glanced in the mirror again—and cringed away from my own reflection. I could’ve dealt with the rest of the ridiculous suit-thing if not for the _coat,_ a glittering monstrosity with puffy cap sleeves, and the stupid _pearls_ glittering in my hair, overgrown blond locks tied back and dripping with strands of jewels. “I look absolutely ridiculous,” I muttered, and it took all of my willpower not to—to burst into tears or laugh hysterically, I wasn’t even sure which—before forcing myself away from the mirror and down the sweeping staircase.

Closer to the courtyard. To the High Lady I loved. To a happy ( _locked in the house, nothing but painting and flowers and those awful roses so much red so much blood Zaneli please_ listen) ending that I damn well didn’t deserve.

I halted by the patio, hesitated before pushing open the doors and stepping out into the courtyard, into the line of fire—or in this case, the lines of staring eyes from Zaneli’s court, three hundred strong. All waiting for me to make my way through that garden (decorated in sky blue and white and shining lanterns—no red, thank the Cauldron), to walk down that aisle and reach the dais at the end, where Zaneli would be waiting. I clung to that thought, to that image—to her smile, her shining green eyes, the way her face would light up when she was happy and the sound of her laugh, to everything I’d fought and killed and _died_ for.

I would reach the dais and stand side-by-side with Zaneli, and Ludociel would sanction and bless our union just before sundown as a representative of the High Priests of Britannia. He’d hinted that they’d pushed to be present—but through whatever cunning, he’d managed to keep the other eleven away. Either to claim the attention for himself, or to spare me from being hounded by the pack of them. I couldn’t tell, and I was too tired to truly dwell on it. Perhaps it was both, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that was the case—as much as Ludociel had helped me adjust to life as a High Fae courtier ( _has he really?_ a small voice wondered, but I ignored it), the male was still frighteningly cunning.

My mouth went paper-dry as Derieri came up behind me, fluffing out the long train of the sparkling coat. Silk and gossamer rustled like wind whispering through tree branches, like autumn, and I felt a quick and sudden ache for the mortal realms, for my brothers and the changing of seasons beyond this stagnant spring. I twined my gloved hands tighter around the pale bouquet I was already clutching like a vise, trying to crush the longing—they were safe, they were _happy_ , and faeries were _loathed_ below the wall by all but the Children of the Blessed. The silk of the gloves caught on an uncut thorn as I nearly snapped the stems, a small imperfection in this armor of silk and satin and lace and pure, lying white.

 _Gloves,_ long and silk and hiding my hands—hiding the dark markings of the Night Court twining up my arm, delivered by Ludociel himself in a velvet lined box. Designed, he’d said, to block _her,_ so no one doubted my loyalty to Spring.

“Don’t be nervous,” Derieri admonished, clapping me on the shoulder (crushing one of those awful cap-sleeves, thank the Cauldron—but _gah,_ now Zaneli would be annoyed with him later), the skin beneath her tawny fur flushed honey-gold in the evening light.

“I’m not,” I rasped out, though the smile I tried to force on fell flat. _I’m terrified._

“Yer fidgeting like my youngest sister during a haircut, idiot.” She straightened my collar, claws tucked in, shooing away a handful of servants who’d come to spy on me before the ceremony. I pretended I didn’t see them, or the gilded, sunset-stained crowd, toying with an invisible fleck of dust on my lapel.

“Ya look beautiful, though,” she added, suddenly quiet and serious. I knew for a fact that she hated my outfit nearly as much as I did, but Derieri wasn’t a liar—and I believed her.

“Thank you.”

“And ya sound like yer going to yer funeral.”

I plastered a grin on my face more successfully this time, and Derieri rolled her eyes—but she nudged me toward the doors all the same as they opened on some immortal wind, lilting music streaming in. “It’ll be over in a blink,” she added— _by the Mother, please let it be over fast—_ and gently herded me out into the sunlight.

Three hundred people rose to their feet as one and pivoted toward me.

Not since Under-the-Mountain, since my last trial, since my _death_ had so many people been looking at me all at once, dressed like they’d been during those sickening revels when I’d been paraded around on _her_ arm, covered in swirling paint and wearing next to nothing for _her_ amusement. I froze, trembling, as the world seemed to blur nauseatingly, faces melding together indistinctly

Derieri coughed behind me, and I remembered to walk, to look at the dais—

At Zaneli.

Suddenly I couldn’t breathe—not from fear, but from shock, from _love,_ from the overwhelming power radiating from her. She was resplendent in a flowing gown of green and gold, a circlet of pale pink and gold rose petals gleaming on her head, shocking against her dark hair. She looked ethereal, glorious, like some exquisite flower given life, one who took in a tired, hungry, love-starved human and gave him _everything._ Her lips were curved in a smile, green eyes glistening with tears of her own, the grip on her usual glamour loosened and letting that immortal light and beauty shine through, just for me.

I fixed my gaze on her, my High Lady, and stepped onto the grass, scattered with white rose petals—

And red ones.

Like drops of blood amidst the purity of the white, red petals had been sprayed across the path ahead, taunting me, crooning wickedly at me, _monster, murderer, broken creature._ The one thing I hadn’t asked for— _no red, please, anything but red—_ and there it lay, mocking me for ever thinking that I could be whole again.

I pulled in a shallow, shaky breath, forced my gaze up, to Zaneli, her shoulders back and head held high and _proud._ So unaware, unknowing (never _listening)_ of the true extent of how broken and dark and _ruined_ I was inside, how unfit I was to be clothed in white when my hands were so _filthy,_ stained with death while I got to _live._

Everyone else was thinking it, they had to be—I’d killed three of their own, Zaneli’s lieutenant, the Fae of the Summer and Winter Courts, both in cold blood, I’d _killed_ them—

Every step was a thousand times too fast, my heart pounding, stomach churning as I was dragged toward the dais by a will that no longer seemed my own, toward Zaneli. Toward Ludociel, in that pale gold hood and silver crown—toward people who spoke for goodness and light and believed me worthy of it.

As if I was _good—_ as if I hadn’t murdered two of their kind.

I was a murderer and a _liar_.

A cluster of red petals loomed before me, a clot of blood, a pool of it spreading like the blood of the Fae youth of the Summer Court, the one who’d looked me in the eyes and pleaded for his life, the one that had died cursing me—the one I’d killed even as he begged for mercy. I slowed at the edge of that cluster of petals, _bloodbloodbloodmurdererallmyfault._

Ten steps from the dais, from happily-ever-after, I stopped.

Everyone was watching, exactly as they had when I’d died, when I’d been hunted by the Middengard Wyrm, when my neck had been snapped and I’d only survived by grace of the seven High Ladies, even _her._ Watching, surely laughing, sneering, mocking, and I _deserved_ it, I was a _monster—_ all of them, spectators to his torment once again.

Zaneli extended one slim hand, her brow furrowing. My heart beat too hard, too fast, a bird trapped in a cage and s _creaming._

 _I’m going to vomit._ The realization hit me and I shuddered; I was going to throw up right over those rose petals, over the grass and the silk ribbons and all down the front of that damn _suit._

Between my skin and bones, something began to thrum angrily, pounding through my blood in a panic, clawing at me to _letitoutletitoutletitout—_

So many eyes, _too many eyes_ pressed on me, witnesses to every crime I’d committed, every humiliation, every failing and my foolish _humanity._ I didn’t know why I’d even bothered to wear gloves, why I’d let Ludociel convince me that white silk could disguise how utterly ruined I was, that they wouldn’t already know about those hideously intricate tattoos marking me as poisoned and wicked and _broken._  

The fading sun was too hot, the garden too hedged in, the walls rising high to cage me in again, high as the stone walls of those mountain caves. As inescapable as the vow I was about to make, binding him to her forever, shackling Zaneli to my broken and weary soul. The thing inside me was roiling now, my small body shaking with the building force of it as it hunted for a way out, stems of the flowers snapping and crumbling in my grip, _letmeoutletmeoutletmeout_ —

 _Forever_ —I would never get better, never get free of myself, of that dungeon where I’d spent _three months_ of utter hell, three months of being entertainment, an _amusement_ for a force stronger than any of them—

“Meliodas,” Zaneli said, her hand steady as she continued to reach for mine, for _me_. The sun sank past the lip of the western garden wall; shadows pooled, chilling the air, cloaking me in darkness as I deserved, _monster murderer killer human filth_.

If I turned away, they’d start talking, sneering, _mocking,_ but I couldn’t make the last few steps, couldn’t, couldn’t, _couldn’t_ —

I was going to fall apart, right there, right then—and they’d all see precisely how utterly destroyed I was.

 _Help me, help me, help   me,_ I begged someone, _anyone_. Begged Jenna, standing in the front row, her metal eye fixed on me. Begged Ludociel, face serene and patient and lovely within that hood. _Save me—please, save me. Get me out._ End this.

Zaneli took a step toward me—concern shading those eyes, that lovely green flecked with blue and gold—and then with r _ed,_ the firelight reflecting sickeningly on her face.

I retreated a step instinctively, shaking. _No_.

Zaneli’s mouth tightened, sharp with worry and something like _anger_. The crowd murmured, already tittering and leering behind their hands as I stumbled back another step. Silk streamers laden with globes of gold faelight twinkled into life above and around me, like miniature suns—I wished they would explode and burn it all down.

Ludociel said smoothly (too smoothly, like _oil_ and _tar_ ), “Come, Groom, and be joined with your true love. Come, Groom, and let good triumph at last.”

 _Good_. The word rang in my ears painfully, a lie and an insult, like a honey-drenched thorn made to cut me to the bone and _succeeding_. _I am not good. I am_ nothing, _and my soul, my eternal soul, is_ damned—

I tried to get my traitorous lungs to draw air, to inhale, to speak and not _scream_ in terror, to voice the word pounding at my mind like a warhammer breaking at my psyche. _No—no, nononono, no, NO—_

But I didn’t have to say it.

Thunder cracked behind me, wild and booming like two boulders hurling against each other, sending darkness cascading over the courtyard. Screams echoed from the courtiers, people scrambling back and some vanishing outright as shadows erupted, raw, pure _night_ exploding and swirling around the garden as a silvery laugh rippled through the air.

I whirled, and through the night drifting away like smoke on the wind, I found _her—_ a wicked smirk curling her lips, blue eyes glinting with mischief as she straightened the diamond-studded cuffs on her wrists, the diaphanous fabric of her dark gown swirling around her like dark clouds drifting across the night sky.

“Hello, Meliodas darling,” Elizabeth purred.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Night Court is often called "The Court of Nightmares". Surely there's some way to keep our hero from ending up there--right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vervada & Risling - twin faerie siblings, half-wraith. Meliodas's attendants Under-the-Mountain and Elizabeth's servants.
> 
> this chapter is LONG. so are the next few, for that matter. but that just means there's more to enjoy, right?
> 
> Credit for the plot and any and all direct quotes to Sarah J. Maas, credit for the characters to Nakaba Suzuki.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Not when Elizabeth liked to make a spectacle of everything and found pissing off Zaneli to be an art form—an art that only _she_ could create, the only queen more powerful than the High Lady of Spring.

But there she was, standing before me, arrogant and ruthless and unfortunately, devastatingly gorgeous as ever.

 Elizabeth, High Lady of the Night Court, now stood beside me, darkness leaking from her pale skin like ink in water. She angled her head, her long, unbound silver hair shifting with the movement, a wave of moonlight spilling down her midnight-colored gown. Those cobalt eyes sparkled in the golden faelight as they fixed on Zaneli, as she held up a hand to where Zaneli and Jenna and their sentries had their swords half-drawn, sizing up how to get me out of the way, how to bring her _down_ —

But at the lift of that hand, at the reminder of what she was truly capable of, they _froze_. Terrified. Ludociel, however, was backing away slowly, face drained of color.

“What a pretty little wedding,” Elizabeth said in that lilting, amused tone she favored, the ink that swirled all down her arms and legs shifting in the faelight as those many swords remained in their sheaths. The remaining crowd was pressing back, some climbing over seats to get away from the monster before them—Death Incarnate, the lady of night. “I’m almost insulted you didn’t invite me, _Zaneli~_ After all, isn’t this a gathering of friends and loved ones?” She spread her arms wide, and night swirled at her fingertips, at her _command._ “For all to see that _good has triumphed_?” she added, and though she didn’t do so much as glance in Ludociel’s direction, the High Priest froze before whirling away and vanishing.

Elizabeth looked me over slowly and clicked her tongue at my silk gloves, cobalt eyes boring into my green. “And you didn’t even clothe the groom properly. You know, in the Night Court, a consort of the High Lady is branded in paint and ink and _nothing more_.” Whatever had been building beneath my skin went still and cold, like a dead thing. I couldn’t even muster anger at the obvious insult, the cruel, knowing little smile on her lips.

“Get the _hell_ out,” growled Zaneli, stalking toward them. Claws ripped from her knuckles—no gloves for her, unbranded as she was by the night itself. The courtiers began backing away even faster, and even I felt a shudder run through me in the face of that blooming rage, that wild, beastly anger that roiled within her.

But Elizabeth just clicked her tongue again, looking disdainfully down at the High Lady of Spring. “Oh, I don’t think so, Zaneli. Not when I need to call in my bargain with Meliodas _darling_.”

My stomach hollowed out, a tremble of fear running through me. _No—please, no—this isn’t what I meant._ I’d heard tales of the Night Court, a place so cruel and depraved that Mael had modeled his wicked revels Under-the-Mountain off it. To spend a week there, even per our bargain…

Elizabeth chuckled, her voice maliciously soft as she said, “You know what will happen if you try to break the bargain.” Her piercing cobalt eyes roved over the crowd scrambling to get away from her (away from _me,_ like I'd summoned her here somehow), and she laughed, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “I did give you three months of freedom, you know. You could look a little happier to see me.”

I was trembling too badly to speak, to even _think—_ my mind was trapped Under-the-Mountain, in walls of stone and those parties where I’d been dressed in thin sheets of silk that revealed more than they covered, painted to please her and made to drink faerie wine. Elizabeth’s eyes flickered with distaste at the sight of me, and she scoffed low in her throat before turning back to Zaneli, that mask of cool, amused indifference back in place. “I’ll be taking him now.”

A snarl ripped from Zaneli. “Don’t you _dare.”_ I took another step back, trembling—if the two High Ladies got into a fight here, the gardens would be utterly decimated, and the despite the sudden lack of courtiers, there would undoubtedly be casualties, collateral damage, innocents.

Unlike me.

Elizabeth laughed again, but there was a steely, savage edge to it now. “Was I interrupting? I thought it was over.” She glanced back at me, sending ice through my veins as she gave me a smile dripping with venom. She _knew,_ I realized with a sudden shock of horror—somehow, through the bond of the bargain inked into my skin, she _knew_ I was about to say no. “At least, Meliodas seemed to think so.”

Zaneli’s green eyes flashed angrily. “At least let us finish the ceremony—”

“With what High Priest?” I watched Zaneli stiffen, watched her turn to find Ludociel gone, Elizabeth’s lips lifting into a mischievous grin as those claws eased halfway back into her skin. “You _know_ there’s no way out.”

No, there had to be a way out, there _had_ to be, she couldn’t let me go there, _please don’t make me go there._ But Zaneli turned back to her, didn’t even _look_ at me—just looked at the monster before the both of them and hissed, “Elizabeth—”

“Oh, old friend, I’m in no mood to bargain.” Elizabeth stepped closer to me, brushed her hand along my elbow. I jolted at the caress, shuddered, feeling tears start to form. “Though I could work it to my advantage, I’m sure.” She lifted her chin, glanced sideways at me. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t move. Couldn’t. “Z-Zaneli—”

Zaneli stepped closer, her eyes wide—pleading now, instead of viciously angry, like there really was no way out. Panic started to pound at my chest as she growled, “Name your price.”

“Don’t bother,” Elizabeth crooned, linking elbows with me. The contact was repulsive, abhorrent, disgusting, _don’t touch me, please, let me go let me stay I hate you._ She was taking me to the Night Court, to a place regarded as hell by all the other Courts, full of depravity and torture and death.

I managed to get enough air in my lungs to speak, managed to breathe— “Zaneli, p-please.”

“Such _dramatics,”_ Elizabeth drawled, pulling me closer, until I was flush against her body—there was more muscle there than I remembered from Under-the-Mountain, like iron beneath silk. Her arm held me firmly in place as Zaneli paced forward with a snarl.

Her claws were _gone._ Dissolved back into her hands, leaving pale, smooth skin as she breathed, “If you hurt him—” _No._ No, she couldn’t be making those kinds of threats, not the kind that meant she was letting me be taken, _letting me go_. Jenna gaped at Zaneli’s side, eyes wide and furious as the High Lady of Spring stared at the High Lady of Night.

Elizabeth just waved a hand dismissively. “I know, I know—I’ll return him in a week, like-new condition.” She released my elbow only to slip a hand around my waist, pressing me even closer against her as she whispered in my ear, “Hold on.” Darkness roared as she spoke, a wind tearing me this way and that, the ground collapsing beneath his feet and leaving nothing but Elizabeth—and I _hated_ her even as I clung to her, hated her with my entire heart—

And then the darkness vanished.

I smelled jasmine first, rich and sweet—then saw stars. A sea of stars flickering in a black-velvet sky, towering pillars of moonstone that framed the sweeping view of snow-capped mountains rising high enough to seemingly graze those diamonds of light.

“Welcome to the Night Court,” was all Elizabeth said.

* * *

 

 It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.

Whatever building I’d been brought to was perched on one of the gray-stoned mountains. The hall around them was open to the elements, pillars of shining marble and gossamer curtains swaying in that strange, jasmine-scented breeze. There were no windows, so the sky could be seen at all times in glorious arrays of color, the darkness of the night and the brightness of the stars so rich that they didn’t seem real. There was some strange magic clearly at use, for this whole place to be pleasantly warm even at dizzying altitudes in the dead of winter.

 And more than that, it was… _peaceful._ Small, casual living, dining, and work areas dotted the open hallways, sectioned off with those same curtains or potted plants or thick, deliciously soft-looking rugs over the shining moonstone floor. Lanterns made of colored glass bobbed faintly in the breeze, hung from the open, arched ceiling, while little orbs of shining white and bronze faelight floated along behind them. 

 No screams, no shouts, no pleas for mercy—none of the drunken, mad revels I recalled her hosting Under-the-Mountain. Nothing but a pleasant sort of silence, and beautiful, majestic views, and _peace._ There was a wall of white marble behind me, doorways and halls carved into it and lit with more of those lanterns. Surely the tortures, the cruelty lay beyond it—and no wonder I couldn’t hear scream, not with that wall of silencing stone. _But this…_ Subconsciously, I found myself taking a step forward, lips parting in shock as I turned slowly on the spot. _This is the opposite of what they said waited for me in the Night Court._

“This,” Elizabeth said casually, jerking me out of my thoughts with a gasp, “is my private residence.” Her skin was slightly darker than I remembered it, like the palest gold rather than paper-white—from months under the sun after those fifty years Under-the-Mountain. Fifty years of serving Mael, of killing and breaking minds, of destruction.

 The beautiful estate had blinded me for a moment, made me forget the monster it belonged to—a monster who, maybe _once_ , had a heart. I could remember her talking about flying, how she loved it, and I scanned her for any sign of the dark, membranous wings she said she flew when we’d spoken mere days after I’d been Made—when she’d looked at me and stumbled back, as if she’d seen a ghost. I blinked— _will I ever see that glimpse of you beneath that wall again? —_ but all there was before me was the dark, lovely female, looking at me with that wicked, knowing grin. As if the female beneath the wall, beneath that mask, didn’t exist at all.

 _No. She’s a monster._ My gloved hands tightened into fists as I stared up at her defiantly. _I won’t forget._ “How _dare_ you—”

Elizabeth snorted, tossing her head. “Well, I certainly missed _that_ look on your face. So easy to bait, Meliodas darling—you’d be amazed at how boring I’ve found these months without you.” I gritted my teeth, tried to muster the energy to glare at her as she drew closer, her cobalt eyes going cold and lethal. “You’re _welcome_ , you know.”

I gaped—the absolute Cauldron-damned _nerve_ of this female—before gritting my teeth. “For _what?” I could’ve had happily ever after, I’m supposed to be celebrating with my High Lady, if it hadn’t been for those damned rose petals—those rose petals and_ you—

She halted less than a foot away, a predator gazing down at a meal it had decided to toy with before eating. Despite the overwhelming power I could sense, despite her perfection, despite everything, she seemed almost… _normal_ here, the night no longer oozing from her skin. _Normal, but no less dangerous. Normal, but still a monster._ “For saving you when you asked.”

 I stiffened, bit my lip, gritted out— “I didn’t ask for anything, and certainly not from _you_.”

 Elizabeth gave no warning as she reached forward and gripped my arm, snarling softly, and tore off the glove. Her touch was like a brand, burning and leaving swirls of pure _night_ in its wake and I flinched, yielding a step, eyes flicking downward instinctively. Elizabeth, though, held firm (firm, but gentle—Mother above, I really was losing it if I thought the _High Lady of Night_ was _gentle_ ) until she’d gotten both gloves off, white silk falling on the floor. “I heard you begging someone, anyone, to rescue you, to get you out. I heard you say _no_.”     

“I didn’t say anything.”

She didn’t answer at first, just turned my hand over in her grip, revealing the tattoo that spiraled there, intricate and dark and swirling around the design of an open eye—the one part of me physically tainted to match my twisted, ruined soul. Her hold tightened as she examined the tattoo she’d left after our bargain, before tapping the pupil twice. “I heard you loud and clear.”

I bit back a snarl or a sob—I wasn’t sure which, I was _never_ sure which anymore—and snatched my hand away. _I hate you I hate you I hate you._ “Take me back. _Now._ I didn’t want to be stolen away.” _I might not have been able to handle the wedding, but I want to go home, I want to be with Zaneli and Derieri and Jenna and even_ Ludociel _, anywhere but with you._

Elizabeth only shrugged, a languid, uncaring movement. “What better time to take you here? Maybe Zaneli didn’t notice you were about to reject her in front of her entire court—maybe you can now simply blame it on me and escape her wrath.”

 _Wrath?_ Anger and exhaustion warred within me. “She’d never hurt me.” I glared again, though I could feel this one cracking and breaking around the edges—I just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. “And you’re a _bitch—_ you made it clear enough that I had…reservations.”

She purred, a malevolent, vicious sound. “The biggest bitch of them all, darling. Though this lack of gratitude for your savior certainly puts you right up there with me.”

“ _You—”_ I inhaled sharply, trying to take in a single, deep breath—I knew well enough that Elizabeth would be content to argue back and forth with me all night, but I just wanted to get it over with. “What do you want from me?”

Elizabeth arched her eyebrows. “ _Want?_ I want you to say thank you, first of all. Then I want you to take off that hideous…whatever it is.” Her lip curled. “You look exactly like that helpless, doe-eyed damsel she and that simpering priest want you to be.”

“You don’t know anything about me. Or us.”

Her silvery laugh echoed through the air again. “Does your precious Zaneli? Does she ever ask you why you hurl your guts up at night, or can’t go in certain rooms, or see certain colors? Does she know that you haven’t painted since Under-the-Mountain, that whenever you try, the brushes snap in your hands? Does she know—”

 _“STOP IT!”_ My hands were in my hair, nails digging into my scalp, and I couldn’t remember how they got there—I didn’t know why I’d screamed, why I’d just proven how broken I was to someone who had a direct line into my thoughts, who had stripped me naked with just a few words. I fought back a sob, raised my eyes to hers. “Get out of my head,” I breathed, harsh and angry and _shattered. Zaneli has terrors of her own to endure alone. I have to do the same._

Elizabeth didn’t bat an eye. “Likewise.” She stalked a few steps away, circling me with a prowling, feline sort of gait that reminded me _exactly_ who I was dealing with. “You think I enjoy being awoken every night by visions of you puking? You send everything right down that bond, and I don’t appreciate having a front-row seat when I’m trying to sleep _well_ for the first time in forty-nine years.”

“ _Prick_.”

Another chuckle. But I wouldn’t ask about what she meant—about the bond between us. I wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ give her the satisfaction of looking curious. “As for what else I want from you…” She gestured to the expanse of rooms behind us. “I’ll tell you tomorrow at breakfast. For now, clean yourself up. Rest.” That strange, almost _protective_ rage flickered in her eyes again at the clothes, the hair. “Take the stairs on the right, one level down. Your room is the first door.”

“Not a dungeon cell?” Perhaps it was foolish to reveal that fear, to suggest it to her—she’d already seen into my head, seen my weaknesses. I didn’t want to give her anything more.

But Elizabeth turned slightly, brows lifting and furrowing just a touch, as if confused by my question. “You are not a prisoner, Meliodas. You made a bargain, and I am calling it in as an equal. You will be my guest here, with the privileges of a member of my household. None of my subjects are going to touch you, hurt you, or so much as think ill of you here.”

My tongue was dry and heavy as I whispered, “And where might those subjects be?” _Beyond the wall, hiding in the shadows, waiting for the kill—_

“Some dwell here—in the mountain beneath us.” She angled her head, a sharp, catlike movement. “They’re forbidden to set foot in this residence. They know they’d be signing their death warrants.” Her eyes met mine, stark and clear, as if she could _sense_ the panic, the shadows creeping in and clouding my mind. “Mael wasn’t very creative,” she said with quiet wrath, as deep and dark and endless as midnight. “My court beneath this mountain has long been feared, and he chose to replicate it by profaning the space of Britannia’s sacred mountain. So, yes: there’s a court beneath this mountain—the court your Zaneli now expects me to be subjecting you to. I preside over it every now and then, but it mostly rules itself.”

“When—when are you taking me there?” If I had to go underground, had to see those kinds of horrors again…  I would beg her— _beg_ her not to take me. I didn’t care how pathetic it made me, not anymore, not after what I’d seen beneath a mountain just like this one. I’d lost any sort of qualms about what lines I’d cross to survive.

“I’m not.” She rolled her shoulders, tilted her head back with a sigh. “This is my home, my sanctuary, and the court beneath it is my… _occupation_ , as you mortals call it—and a rather unpleasant one at that, by your standards at least. I do not like for the two to overlap very often.”

My eyebrows rose slightly. “‘You mortals’?” _You know damn well what I am now—what your magic Made me, you and the other High Ladies._

Starlight danced along the planes of her face, making it seem inhuman and savage for a moment. “Should I consider you something different?”

A challenge. _All of this, and still she wants to bait me?_ I shoved away my irritation at the amusement again tugging at the corners of her lips, and instead said, “And the other denizens of your court?” The Night Court territory was enormous—bigger than any other in Britannia. And all around them were those empty, snow-blasted, silvery-gray mountains. No sign of towns, cities, or anything beyond those sky-piercing spearheads—no _civilization_. Just empty space, wild and untamed.

“Scattered throughout, dwelling as they wish. Just as _you_ are now free to roam where you wish.”

I lifted my chin, met those blazing blue eyes as I set my jaw. “I wish to roam home.” _Back to Spring, back to her, let me_ go.

Elizabeth merely laughed, finally sauntering toward the other end of the hall with sickening, smug casualness, toward a veranda open to the stars. “I’m willing to accept your thanks at any time, you know,” she called to me without looking back.

 Red exploded in my vision, coating everything in the kind of wild, all-consuming rage I hadn’t felt in months. I couldn’t breathe fast enough, couldn’t think above the savage roar in my head. One heartbeat, I was staring after her—the next, I had my shoe in a hand. I didn’t even think before moving, just drawing upon that sudden swell of _wrath._

I hurled it at her with all my strength.

All my considerable, _immortal_ strength--strength like hers.

I barely saw my silk slipper as it flew through the air, fast as a shooting star, so fast that even a High Lady couldn’t detect it as it neared—

And slammed into her head.

Elizabeth whirled, a hand rising to the back of her head, her eyes wide—and then _cold_ , sharp with anger.

I already had the other shoe in my hand.

Elizabeth’s lip pulled back from her teeth, gleaming white and sharp as daggers _. “I dare you.”_ Temper—she had to be in some mood today to let her temper show this much, to drop that implacably amused mask she always wore.

Good. _That makes two of us_. I flung my other shoe right at her head, as swift and hard as the first one.

Her hand snatched up, grabbing the shoe mere inches from her face.

Elizabeth hissed and lowered the shoe, her eyes meeting mine as the silk dissolved to glittering black dust in her fist. Her fingers unfurled, the last of the sparkling ashes blowing into oblivion, and she surveyed my hand, my body, my face—sizing him up, predator and prey. “Interesting,” she murmured, and continued on her way, unbothered and languid and _infuriating_ once more.

I debated tackling her and pummeling that smug, knowing, unfortunately gorgeous face with my fists, but I wasn’t stupid. I was in her home, on top of a mountain in the middle of absolutely _nowhere_ , it seemed, thousands of miles up in the air with nowhere to run and the court of horrors beneath me. No one would be coming to rescue me—no one was even here to witness my screaming if I pushed Elizabeth too far, if the most powerful High Lady in history snapped.

So I turned toward the doorway she’d indicated, heading for the dim stairwell beyond.

I’d nearly reached it, not daring to breathe too loudly, when a bright, amused female voice said behind me—far away, from wherever Elizabeth had gone to at the opposite end of the hall, “So, _that_ went well.”

Elizabeth’s answering snarl sent my footsteps hurrying.

* * *

 

My room was…something out of a dream.

I scoured it for exits, traps, made myself memorize every entrance and potential hiding place before pausing to get a proper look at the place I’d be staying for the next week. Like the flowing, open living space upstairs, there were no windows and everything was open to the elements, blocked only by magic and sheer, glimmering curtains of lapis and emerald that fluttered in that jasmine-scented breeze. The bed was massive, and plush, a creamy sort of creation of white and ivory and pale, neutral browns, with pillows and blankets and throws that looked as soft as a cloud to the touch. One of the sleek marble walls was occupied by a dresser and an armoire, carved from some dark, rich wood that I couldn’t quite identify—mahogany, perhaps? –framed by those wide, open windows and gem-colored curtains. Across the room lay a more closed off chamber containing a porcelain sink and toilet, but the bath…

Mother above, the _bath._

It was more of a pool, really, deep and wide enough for me to swim in, hanging right off the mountain itself and seeming to cascade off the edge into nothing, as though it melted into the sky. A narrow, adjacent ledge was lined with fat, cinnamon-scented candles blowing thin trails of smoke through the air, twining with the steam from the magically-heated bathwater. It was _luxurious_ , and if I wasn’t so tired, I might have soaked there for a long time—if only to scrub Elizabeth’s touch off my body.

But this…it was open, it was airy, plush, _calm._ Not too opulent, perfectly comfortable, built for function and warmth as much as form, made more for an emperor than a kidnapped member of another Court. Marble floors, silks and velvets, the sleek accents of gold and silver—if this was the room of a guest, then what was Elizabeth’s like? _Scratch that—I really don’t want to know._ I gazed over the room again, feeling slightly less…hesitant? Afraid?

 _Guest,_ Elizabeth had said. _A member of my household._ Zaneli would have scoffed at that—hell, everyone I knew would’ve scoffed at that, but the room proved it. I ran my hands through my hair, winced as I encountered the pins there, the train of the long coat hissing on the floor as I turned slowly.

_You look like the doe-eyed damsel she and that simpering priest want you to be._

Heat flamed up my neck and across my cheeks as I looked down at myself, and I shook my head with a hiss. What she was doing for me now, with the accommodations, and the saving-me-from-rejecting-Zaneli, and _everything_ —whatever game this was to her—it didn’t excuse what she’d done. Didn’t change the fact that the High Lady of Night was a monster through and through.

_Ridiculous._

But I was tired, _exhausted,_ and I desperately needed to sleep—and sleeping while dripping in headache-causing pins and heavy fabric would only make the nightmares worse. Slowly, I tugged the pins from my hair, letting it fall loose around my shoulders—it was _long_ now, almost ridiculously so, but easier to hide behind—and piled them up, dozens of them glittering and winking tauntingly at me. The sight of them made me grit my teeth and I squeezed his eyes shut, sweeping them into a drawer and slamming it shut hard enough to rattle the dressing table. I rubbed at my scalp, aching even without the weight of the pins and jewels. This afternoon, I’d imagined Zaneli removing them one by one, a kiss for every pin, but now—

I swallowed against the burning in my throat, sank back onto the edge of the bed. _Now it’ll never happen._

Elizabeth should have been the least of my concerns. Zaneli had seen the hesitation, e _veryone_ had—but had she known I was going to say no? Did anyone? _I have to tell her,_ I thought, stomach twisting—there couldn’t be a wedding, _shouldn’t_ be. Not until the mating bond snapped into place _(and it would, it had to)_ , until I knew for sure that this wasn’t a mistake, that I was… _worthy._ Yes, until I was worthy, and maybe a little less broken—until Zaneli faced her nightmares, too, until she relaxed her grip on things, on _me_. Until I explained that I understood her desire to protect, her fear of losing me—but that she was suffocating me, killing me slowly.

But _everyone_ had seen me hesitate—had seen me nearly _break. You’re the problem, you’re the mistake, this is your fault for ever thinking you could be happy after what you’ve done—_

My lower lip trembled and I began undressing, stripping out of that damn _suit_ and throwing it into the armoire. My tattoo was stark against the pile of white silk and lace, the sweeping, intricate design of the dark eye gazing up at me tauntingly. My breath came faster and faster, wheezing in my aching lungs as the world blurred dizzyingly around me. I didn’t realize I was crying until I grabbed the first bit of fabric within the armoire I could find—a set of turquoise nightclothes—and shoved my feet into the ankle-length pants, then pulled the short-sleeved matching shirt over my head, the hem grazing the top of his navel, tears leaving dark streaks on the bright fabric. I didn’t care that it had to be some Night Court fashion, didn’t care that they were soft and warm— _couldn’t_ care, not when I was alone, when I’d ruined _everything._

I climbed into that big, fluffy bed, the sheets smooth and cool and welcoming on my burning skin and could barely draw a breath steady enough to blow out the lamps on either side. Barely breathe through the swirl of broken glass and shadows within me, barely _think._

But as soon as darkness enveloped the room, my sobs hit in full—shuddering, gasping cries that made me shake as they wracked my body, flowing out the  open windows, and into the silence of the starry, snow-kissed night.

_Alone._

_I am alone._

* * *

 

Elizabeth, apparently, hadn’t been lying when she said I was to join her for breakfast (and didn’t the mere idea of _breakfast_ just seem…insanely odd after yesterday’s events, didn’t it just feel _too normal_ for the Night Court?).

My old handmaidens from Under-the-Mountain (two shadows I could barely remember, always gentle, almost sympathetic, one of the few kind presences I could recall) appeared at my door just past dawn, and I might not have recognized the pretty, red-haired twins had they not acted like they knew me. I had never seen them as anything but shadows, their faces always concealed in impenetrable night. But here—or perhaps without Mael—they were fully corporeal.

Vervada and Risling were their names, and I wondered if they’d ever told me, during those three months of trials and deception and wild, untamed, savage revelry. If I had been too far gone Under-the-Mountain to even care, and I found himself wishing that my mind had gone a little farther—enough not to remember that time at all.

Their gentle knock hurled me into waking—not that I’d slept much during the night. But for heartbeat, I _forgot_. For a single heartbeat, I wondered why the bed felt so much softer, why snow-capped, shining mountains and open sky flowed into the distance and not spring grasses and roses and hills…and then it all poured back in. Loudly. Brightly. Painfully. Along with a throbbing, relentless headache, like someone was pounding a hammer inside my skull.

After the second, patient knock, followed by a muffled explanation through the door of who they were, I scrambled—or stumbled, really, I was still so tired and _disoriented_ —out of bed to let them in. And after a miserably awkward greeting (the kind that happened when you had absolutely _no idea_ who the people talking to you were, but they obviously knew you), they informed me that breakfast would be served in thirty minutes, and I was to bathe and dress.

I didn’t bother to ask if Elizabeth was behind that last order, or if it was their recommendation based on how grim I no doubt looked, but they laid out some clothes on the bed before leaving me to wash in private.

The bath was, as it turned out, even more deliciously warm and _perfect_ than it had looked the previous night. I sank into the water, the heat doing wonders for my fatigued and aching body, the cinnamon scent of the candles dispelling some of the pounding in my head as I dipped below the water before surfacing with a sigh. I was sorely tempted to linger in the luxurious heat of the bathing pool for the rest of the day, demands of the High Lady definitely withstanding and _ignored_ , but a faint, endlessly amused _tug_ cleaved through my headache. I knew that tug—had been called by it once before, in those hours after Mael’s downfall, pulled by the bond of my bargain with the High Lady of Night.

A High Lady who, by her own admission, could fly, and had put me in a room with a bath open to the skies.

I ducked to my neck in the water, scanning the clear winter sky,  the fierce wind whipping the snow off those nearby peaks… No sign of her, no pound of beating wings. But the tug yanked again in my mind, my gut—a summoning. Like some servant’s bell, a _demand_ that she didn’t even bother to disguise as a request.

Cursing  her soundly (and _loudly,_ with every vile word I could think of, both faerie and human), I scrubbed myself down and dressed in the clothes they’d left.

And now, striding across the sunny upper level as I blindly followed the source of that smug, insufferable _tug_ , my silken shoes near-silent on the moonstone floors, I wanted to shred the clothes off my body and burn them to ash, if only for the fact that they belonged to this place, to _her_. That they marked me as another one of her playthings, if only for the week.

My high-waisted pants were loose and billowing and deep amber, gathered at the ankles with velvet cuffs of bright silver. The long sleeves of the matching top were made of gossamer, also gathered at the wrists, and the top itself hung just to my navel, revealing a sliver of skin as I walked—whether it was simply the fashion or for her amusement, I wasn’t sure. But the clothes…

Comfortable, easy to move in—to run in, if I had to. Feminine—or simply _elegant_ ; roles between genders here were far more blurred than in the mortal realms, where men both led and fought (females were the only ones who could rule here, and males were traditionally regarded as the more “gentle sex”, though perhaps that wasn’t the right term—they were considered both too hard and too soft to handle the duties of a ruler). The clothes were exotic, certainly compared to the clothes I was used to wearing in the Spring Court. Thin enough that, unless Elizabeth planned to torment me by casting me into the winter wasteland around her _private residence_ , I could assume I wasn’t leaving the borders of whatever warming magic kept the palace so balmy.

At least the tattoo, visible through the sheer  sleeve, wouldn’t be out of place here, wouldn’t mark me as a traitor or a monster or _unclean_. But—the clothes were still a part of this court, a place called a nightmare by everyone I knew, everyone I trusted.

And  no doubt part of some game she intended to play with me.

At the very end of the upper level, a small glass table gleamed like quicksilver in the heart of a stone veranda, set with three plush, comfortably-looking chairs and laden with fruits, juices, pastries, and breakfast meats, their mouthwatering scents melding together with that of jasmine and asphodel. And sprawled languidly in one of those chairs, silver hair spilling over her shoulders…

Though Elizabeth stared impassively out at the sweeping view, the snowy mountains near blinding in the brilliant morning sunlight (the light of them almost like diamonds and stars come down to earth, I thought, and my fingers twitched with the faint urge to paint—one I hadn’t felt since Under-the-Mountain), I knew she’d sensed my arrival from the moment he cleared the stairwell at the other side of the hall.  Maybe since I’d awoken, if that immediate, _knowing_ tug was any indication.

I paused between the last two pillars, studying the High Lady lounging at the breakfast table and the view she surveyed—predator and prey again.

“I’m not a dog to be summoned,” I said by way of greeting—positively civil, considering how our conversations usually started.

Slowly, Elizabeth looked over her shoulder, as if just noticing I was there. Those blue, blue eyes were sapphire-vibrant in the light, and I curled my fingers into shaking fists as they swept from my head to my toes and back up again in some strange examination only she understood. She frowned at whatever she found lacking, the movement just a furrow in her brow before she shrugged, her face smoothing. “Then I suppose asking you to sit would be beyond your capabilities,” she said absently, her gaze returning to those diamond-bright mountains.

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself not to rise to the bait, before opening them with an effort. My head throbbed, and I eyed the silver teapot steaming in the center of the table. A cup of tea…Cauldron, I would do _anything_ for a cup of tea right now. “I thought it’d always be dark here,” I said, if only to not look quite as desperate for that life-giving tea so early in the morning, to delay the demands she'd undoubtedly make at some point.

“We’re one of the three Solar Courts,” she said, motioning for me to sit with a graceful twist of her deceptively delicate wrist. “Our nights are far more beautiful, and our sunsets and dawns are _exquisite_ , but we do adhere to the laws of nature. Perhaps tomorrow Vervada and Risling will wake you to watch the sunrise.” Her words were calm, an off-handed, pleasant remark with a hint of pride to it—like a host suggesting some activity of sorts to a guest, showing off what they liked about their home. It was a surprisingly normal, civil statement, and I blinked, taken aback.

I slid cautiously into the upholstered chair across from her. Her tunic—no sweeping gown of dark blues and blacks today, just a long indigo shirt embroidered with gold and fitted to show off her lithe form, white pants and black sandals—was unbuttoned at the neck revealing a hint of the pale chest beneath. “And do the other courts choose not to? Adhere to the laws of nature, I mean.” It would be strange, I though, to see winter in Spring, but…though I didn’t want to admit it, would certainly never say it to Zaneli, the idea seemed more _interesting._

For the first time that morning, her lips turned upward at the corners, and there was something _genuine_ to it. “The nature of the Seasonal Courts,” she said, “is linked to their High Ladies, whose magic and will keeps them in eternal spring, or winter, or fall, or summer. It has always been like that—some sort of strange stagnation, withstanding forever the tests of time. But the Solar Courts—Day, Dawn, and Night—are of a more…symbolic nature. We might be           powerful, but even we cannot alter the sun’s path or strength.” She shrugged. “They are constant. We…are _ever-changing_ , learning, growing—much like mortals. Tea?”

 _Mortals,_ I noted. Not _you mortals,_ like last night. No, this Elizabeth was more restrained, calmer—which meant that she’d lost her temper to a greater degree than I thought. But I didn’t want to dwell on it, not now, not with the promise of _tea_ so close. The sunlight danced along the curve of the silver teapot, catching my eye and making my throat and head ache all the more. I kept my eager nod to a restrained dip of my chin, though—no need to seem so needy, so _hungry_ for anything of _hers_. “But you will find,” Elizabeth went on, pouring a rather generous cup for me, “that our nights are more spectacular— _so_ spectacular that some in my territory even awaken at sunset and go to bed at dawn, just to live under the starlight.”

I splashed some milk in the tea, watching the light and dark eddy together, the milk building like a cloud in the dark liquid before turning it a pale beige. “Why is it so warm in here, when winter is in full blast out there?”

“Magic.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, dumping sugar into the tea and stirring it rapidly. The familiar, comforting _whirr_ of the spoon against the cup helped me keep my head clear as I huffed, “ _Obviously_." I set down my teaspoon and sipped, nearly sighing at the rush of heat and smoky, rich flavor. “But _why_?”

“Because my body can’t handle the cold like my wicked queen’s heart can?” Elizabeth scanned the wind tearing through the peaks, lips quirking upwards at her own joke, smug _ass_. “All jokes aside, you heat a house in the winter—why shouldn’t I heat this place as well? I’ll admit I don’t know _why_ my    predecessors saw fit to build a palace like a wet dream of the Summer Court's architects in the middle of a mountain range that’s mildly warm at best, but who am I to question? It doesn’t take much energy to renew the wards keeping the snow and wind from coming in here, and this place is excellent when I seek quiet and solitude, so I keep the place as comfortable as I please.”

It was, unfortunately, ridiculously comfortable, almost more so than the Spring Court—and quiet and empty of those tittering courtiers, those _stares_. But it wasn’t _home._ I shook my head and bit back another relieved, overwhelmed sigh before I took a few more sips, that headache already lessening, and dared to scoop some of the ripe, nearly-perfect fruit onto his otherwise empty plate from a glass bowl nearby.

She watched every movement, those shadowed, glittering cobalt eyes fixed on me. Then she said quietly, “You’ve lost weight.”

 _As if that’s news to me._ “You’re prone to digging through my head whenever you please,” I replied without bothering to look up at her, stabbing a piece of melon with my fork and biting into it. A burst of flavor overwhelmed me and I closed his eyes for a moment as I chewed, before swallowing and leaning back slightly. “I don’t see why you’re surprised by it.”

Her gaze didn’t lighten, though that smile again played about her sensuous mouth, no doubt her favorite mask. “Only occasionally will I do that. And I can’t help it if _you_ send things down the bond that break my shields.”

I contemplated refusing to ask as I had done last night, but… “How does it work—this _bond_ that allows you to see into my head?” _And how can I break it?_

She sipped from her own tea, her gaze very far away, as if lost in thought. “Think of the bargain’s bond as a…bridge, of sorts, between us—and at either end is a gateway to our respective minds. A shield, a barrier to keep the other out. My innate talents allow me to slip through the mental shields of anyone I wish, with or without that bridge—unless they’re very, _very_ strong, or have trained extensively to keep those shields tight no matter who happens to come knocking. As a human, the gates to your mind were flung open for me to stroll through as I pleased. As Fae…” She gave a little shrug, nothing more than the slight lift of a shoulder. “Sometimes, you unwittingly have a shield up—sometimes, when emotion seems to be running strong, that shield vanishes. And sometimes, when those shields are open, you might as well be standing at that gateway to your mind, shouting your thoughts across the bridge to me. Sometimes I hear them; sometimes I don’t.”

I scowled, clenching my fork harder. “And how often do you just rifle through my mind when my shields are down?”

All amusement faded from her face, replaced with something I couldn’t quite read—something fierce and sharp and absolutely _burning_ when I looked her in the eye. “When I can’t tell if your nightmares are real threats or imagined. When you’re about to be married and you silently beg someone, _anyone_ to help you-when you say _no_ , and have no allies left that will let you. Only when you drop your mental shields and unknowingly blast those things down the bridge between us. And to answer your question before you ask, _yes_. Even with    your shields up, I could get through them if I wished.” Her eyes flashed with a morbid sort of amusement. “Though I don’t think you have to worry about me _wanting_ to open those gates and see you shivering and vomiting. You could, however, train—learn how to shield against someone like me, even with the bond bridging our minds and my own… _talents_.”

It was tempting, so tempting, the idea of being able to shut her out whenever I needed to, to slam the metaphorical door in the High Lady of the Night Court’s face. Still, I ignored the offer. Agreeing to do anything with her felt too… _permanent_ , too accepting of the bargain between us. “What do you want with me? You said you’d tell me here. So, tell me.” _Let’s get this over with._

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, folding slim, powerful arms that even the fine clothes couldn’t hide. “For this week? I want you to learn how to read.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please R&R--read and review! Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth declares her intentions, Meliodas kind of wants to stab her in the throat, and a new friend waltzes in to say, "About damn time you got here." Or, you know, something similar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nynsar - a small Faerie holiday, not as widely celebrated as the winter and summer solstices or Calanmai (Fire Night), but still honored by the Fae
> 
> Credit for the plot and any and all direct quotes to Sarah J. Maas, credit for the characters to Nakaba Suzuki.

Elizabeth had mocked me about it long ago, once upon a time in a hellish court under Britannia’s most sacred mountain. She’d taunted me—a mortal, son of a fallen merchant “princess”, a human who presumed to love a High Lady who’d never learned how to do something as simple as _reading._ She’d asked me there if being forced to learn to read would be my own personal idea of torture and _laughed._

“No thank you,” I said, forcing my voice to stay light and overly pleasant while resisting the (all-too-tempting) urge to hurl my fork at her head.

“You’re going to be the consort of a High Lady.” She tilted her head, silver spilling across the indigo of her shirt as she twirled a strand around one pale, tattooed finger, looking bored. “You’ll be expected to give speeches and toasts, keep your own correspondence—and I have no doubt that there will be dozens of tasks dearest Zaneli and that priest of hers will deem appropriate to delegate to you. Dinner menus for feasts, memos for your wife, thank-you letters for all the wedding gifts I admittedly robbed from you—this cutlery was supposed to be yours, by the way, but I’m keeping it. Your Court’s theme is more…green and _gold,_ so I’ll keep with the silver _—_ embroidering sweet phrases on pillows for gifts…for one of your station, it’s a necessary skill, _plus_ there’s nothing like a novel for relieving the boredom of Spring’s stagnation. And you know what? Let’s throw in shielding while we’re at it, so you don’t storm in here accusing me of rummaging through your head—which, by the way, I do as rarely as possible considering your mental state. Which reading should help with as well, by the way, a good mystery is fantastic for occupying the mind and forgetting reality. Almost as good as torturing the innocent.” She _laughed_ , shaking her head at me as I shot her the deadliest glare possible. “Oh, don’t give me that—I _don’t._ Anymore, that is. And the best part is about reading and shielding, you can practice them together.”

I gritted my teeth, tightened my already-crushing grip on the fork so not to stab it into her hand. _What about all those innocents Under-the-Mountain?_ I nearly asked, but I forced myself to hold my tongue, just long enough to refute her on this. “They are _both_ necessary skills,” I hissed, “but _you_ are not going to teach me.”

“What else are you going to do, Meliodas darling? Paint?” Judging by the look in her eyes, she _knew—_ had been with me every time I walked into that art studio Zaneli had so generously given me, only to flee within moments. “How’s that working out for you lately?”

It was all I could do not to snarl at her. “Why the hell does it matter to you?”

Elizabeth’s lips curved into a sensual smirk. “It serves…various purposes of mine.”

_“What. Purposes.”_

Delight sparked in those blue eyes, delight and mischief. “Well, to find out, Meliodas darling, you’re going to have to work with me.”

Something sharp pricked against my hand before I could snarl out a retort, and I glanced down—and stared.

I’d folded the fork into a tangle of metal.

Slowly—and then defiantly, because _fuck her,_ I set it on the table and leaned back, glaring. She just chuckled, the noise like the soft purring of thunder on the horizon. “Interesting.”

“You said that last night.” _After I actually managed to catch you off-guard—to surprise you._

“The lovely thing about words, Meliodas, is that you can say them as much as you want.” And I didn’t know why I didn’t see that coming, the avoidance, the bait, the way she toyed with me, making me _ask._ This was _her_ game, and I hated that she held all the cards here—but I wouldn’t win anything back by remaining ignorant.

Don’t break. _Bend_. “That’s not what I was implying and you damn well know it.”

Her gaze, hard as diamond and sharp as steel, raked over me, as if she could see through amber silks and pale skin and green eyes to whatever lay beneath, whatever monster was left after I’d taken those innocent lives, whatever shreds of soul remained. Then it flicked to the tangle of metal I’d turned the fork into. “Has anyone ever told you you’re rather strong for a High Fae?”

“Am I?” I hadn’t seen anything that would point to me being different, other, even among Fae. Then again, this was the first time I’d felt something other than anxiousness and apathy and exhaustion in months. I hadn’t exactly been _looking_.

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll take that as a no.” She took a strawberry directly from the fruit bowl and popped it into her mouth. “Have you tested yourself against anyone?”

 _Does it_ look— “Why would I?” I’d been in no shape to try and had no will to whatsoever. Not anymore.

She arched a silvery eyebrow, took another strawberry and chewed slowly before answering. “You, darling, were resurrected by the combined powers of all seven High Ladies. I’d be curious to see if something other than immortality flowed through those veins now—of what I could do, what was transferred to me.”

My blood ran cold, and unbidden, I recalled that strange, pounding feeling in my chest during the disaster of a wedding, the feeling of something that begged to explode over that courtyard that had felt like a cage. “Nothing was transferred to me.” _Nothing I’ll let you see—nothing I’ll test around_ you.

“It’d just be rather… _interesting,”_ and she smirked at the word, likely knowing it would infuriate me further, “if it did.”

“It didn’t, and like hell am I going to learn to read or shield with you.” I could find another teacher at home—Jenna, or Ludociel, maybe even Zaneli if she had time. Not _Elizabeth._

“Why? From spite?” She pointed a piece of starfruit at me almost accusingly. “Because while spite’s fun to work with, I thought you and I got past that Under-the-Mountain.”

Something in me went quiet, silent—cold as ice. “Don’t get me started on what you did to me Under-the-Mountain.”

Elizabeth went _still_.

As still as I’d  ever seen her, as still as the death now beckoning in those fearless blue eyes. Then her chest began to move, faster and faster—a mask crumbling, a glamour falling to reveal something I’d never seen from her, never considered her feeling, something like desperation, fear, _fury._ Across the moonstone and marble pillars towering behind him, I could have sworn the shadow of great wings spread, wide and dark and terrifying.

She opened her mouth, leaning forward—and then stopped. Instantly, the shadows, the ragged breathing, the intensity  were gone, the catlike returning as her posture resumed its languid slump. “We have company. We’ll discuss this later.”

“Like hell we will,” I snapped. I didn’t care who was coming, who saw; I was going to get answers by whatever force I had left in me. I would have played that game of give and take if not for the mention of that _hell—_ but she had mentioned it, had been about to reveal something, and now that glimpse was _gone._ But quick, light footsteps sounded down the hall, and then _she_ appeared.

Elizabeth was the most beautiful female I’d ever seen, but the one standing before her now was in every way her equal.

Her rich, dark hair was tied loosely up in two pigtails, the ends of them brushing her bare shoulders. The vibrant turquoise of her sweeping gown offset sunkissed skin, her wrists encircled by delicate bracelets of amethyst. Vibrant, violet eyes fixed on me, warm and bright and absolutely delighted.

“Meliodas,” Elizabeth said smoothly, as though the last few minutes had never happened, “meet my cousin, Diane. Di, meet the lovely, charming and… _open-minded_ Meliodas.”

I contemplated splashing my still-hot tea in her face, but Diane strode toward me. Each step was assured, steady, bouncy but graceful…and grounded and alert, the gait of someone who didn’t need a weapon to be a threat—or at least, didn’t need to sheath one at her side. “I’ve heard so much about you!” she chirped, and I rose to my feet awkwardly, stretching out my hand for her to shake.

She ignored it completely and swept me into a bone-crushing hug, the scent of citrus and cinnamon wafting off her lightly. I tried to force my muscles to relax, to return her embrace to at least some degree before she pulled away with a downright fiendish grin. “You, my friend, were _all_ she talked about for weeks—”

_“Diane.”_

“—Though you do seem to have a talent for getting under her skin. Good thing I came along.” She threw herself down in the unoccupied seat, her grin widening. “It’d be fun to see _Elizabeth_ splattered against the wall for once, though~”

Elizabeth gave her an incredulous look, and for the first time that day, I had to hide a smile. “It’s—very nice to meet you.”

“ _Liar,”_ Diane sang, loading her plate with a bit of everything and dumping at least half the sugar into her tea. “You want nothing to do with us, do you? And wicked Lizzie is making you sit here arguing with her about this, that and the other thing because she’s a bored, lonely old woman.”

At that, I had to actually stifle a laugh, drowning it in a gulp of tea. Elizabeth coughed, raising her eyebrows. “You’re…perky today, Diane.”

“Forgive me about being excited about having company for like, the first time in c _enturies.”_ Those stunning violet eyes lifted to Elizabeth’s face, a familiar smirk that seemed to be a genetic trait of some sort crossing her face.

“You could be attending to your own duties.” Her voice was sharp, testy, and I fought down giggles as Diane shot me a wink. I’d never seen Elizabeth _irked_ before—angry, smug, playful, but never something so ordinary as irritated.

“And where’s the fun in that?” She waved a hand dismissively at her. “Besides, I needed a break, and you told me to come up here whenever I liked—so what better time than now, when you’ve finally brought my new friend out to meet me?”

Two things clicked for me in that second—one, that she actually meant what she’d said about being glad to meet me. And two…two, that the female voice I’d heard last night teasing Elizabeth had been _hers,_ mocking the High Lady for our bickering. _So,_ that _went well,_ she’d teased, as if there was an alternative for us, as if we could be pleasant and not snipe at each other every five seconds. Which was…doubtful, to say the least.  

It took me a moment to realize that a new fork had appeared beside my plate, and I picked it up hesitantly before spearing a bite-sized piece of melon. “You two look nothing alike.” One felt like night and starlight and steel, the other like rich, warm earth and honey and bronze, moon and sun, completely different in both coloring and personality, as far as I could tell.

Elizabeth actually snorted at that. “Di is my cousin in the _loosest_ sense of the word.” The brunette grinned at her, raising her cup of tea in a mocking salute as she devoured slices of cheese and tomato. “But we were raised together, she and I—she’s my only surviving family.”

I didn’t have the nerve to ask what happened to the others. Or to remind myself whose fault it was that Zaneli had lost _her_ family at the hands of this female’s mother. Elizabeth didn’t seem to see the color draining from my face, though, simply continuing with, “And as my only surviving relative, she feels entitled to breeze in and out of my life as she sees fit.”

“Ooh, so _grumpy_ this morning,” was all Diane said, rolling her eyes.

“I didn’t see you.” The words came out before I could stop them, and I stabbed again at a piece of fruit. “Under-the-Mountain, I mean.”

Diane shrugged, though her gaze darkened a bit. “Oh, I wasn’t there. I was—"

“Enough, Diane,” Elizabeth interrupted softly, her voice like a blade being drawn from its scabbard. I forced myself not to sit up straighter, to try and gauge how far they’d push each other, the limits of each and the outcome of this sudden dance of words. To my surprise, Diane merely sighed and tilted her head back, flopping dramatically against the chair.

Elizabeth set her napkin on the table and rose to her feet, that hint of sharpness gone and replaced with smooth, quicksilver fluidity. “Diane will be here for the rest of the week, but by all means, do not feel obliged to grace her with your presence.” Diane stuck her tongue out at her, and Elizabeth rolled her eyes—a shockingly human gesture from the normally savage, wickedly powerful female. Her eyes drifted to the plate. “Eat enough?” I nodded. “Good. Then let’s go.” Her eyes glinted as she gestured toward the shining pillars and swaying curtains behind her. “Your first lesson awaits.”

“If she pisses you off, Meliodas, don’t hesitate to push her over the rail of the nearest balcony,” Diane called, slicing a muffin in half with an expert sweep of her knife. Elizabeth gave her a smooth, vulgar gesture, already stalking down the hall as I slowly got to my feet. Her violet eyes flicked up to me. “Any time you want company, just give a shout.”

I glanced over my shoulder, to where Elizabeth’s dark form slipped around a corner. “Enjoy your breakfast,” I murmured—and followed.

* * *

 

I agreed to sit at the  long, wooden table in a private, curtained-off alcove only because she—loathe though I was to admit that Elizabeth was right about anything—had a point. Not being able to read had almost cost me my life Under the Mountain in that second trial of riddles—my life and Jenna’s as well. I’d  be damned if I let it become a fatal weakness again, her bizarre personal agenda or no. And as for shielding… I’d be an utter and complete fool not to take up the offer to learn from  her. Like it or not, she was the best of the best when it came to mental manipulations, the reading of thoughts or concealing of them, and the ability to keep her out would be vital to my survival here. The thought of anyone, especially Elizabeth, who’d proven herself untrustworthy and prone to slipping into my thoughts a dozen times over, sifting through the mess in my mind, taking information about the Spring Court, about the people I loved… I’d never allow it. Not willingly, and definitely not when I had the power to stop it. And here I was, with the opportunity to prevent it dropped right in my lap.

But it didn’t make it any easier to endure Elizabeth’s presence at the wooden table. Or the stack of books piled atop it, like a taunt at my knowledge—or lack thereof, in this case.

“I know my alphabet,” I said sharply as she laid a piece of paper in front of me. “I’m not that stupid.” I twisted my fingers in my lap, ink-covered fingers twining with pale, bare skin, then pinned my restless hands under my thighs.

“Well, that certainly makes things simpler,” she sighed. “Stupid, you most certainly are not—no, that wasn’t a dig at you, stop _glaring._ Mother above, baiting you is fun, but I’m trying to be serious here and figure out where to begin.” Blue eyes flashed as they cut to me. “Since you refuse to tell me anything you know.”

My face warmed at that, and I knew I was bright red—with indignation, anger, or the embarrassment or realizing that she was right about this as well, I wasn’t certain. “Can’t you hire a tutor?”

She arched one delicate eyebrow. “Is it that hard for you to even _try_ in front of me?”

“You’re a High Lady—don’t you have better things to do?” _Important, queenly, torturer-of-all-that-is good-and-holy things? And can you go do them now, please?_

Her lips curled up in a mischievous grin. “Oh, I have _dozens_ of things that need doing, Meliodas. However, none of them are half as fun as watching you squirm—plus, I’m the High Lady. I know how to delegate things that need doing so I can resume my favorite pastime.”

I gave her an incredulous look. “Torturing me?”

Elizabeth grinned, lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “Call it what you want, it’s far more fun for _me_ than taxes and management.”

“You’re a _bitch_ ,” I said, and I sounded almost awestruck, much to my irritation. “Mother above, you really _are_ the biggest bitch of them all.”

Elizabeth huffed a laugh. “I _told_ you so. But I think you’ve _called_ me even worse, so let’s work on getting it in writing.” She tapped the paper in front of her. “Read that.”

A blur of swooping, indecipherable letters. My throat tightened with anxiety, shame, fear. “I can’t.” _You know I can’t._

“Try.”

The sentence had been written in a looping, somewhat disheveled scrawl—disheveled, but still legible to me. Her handwriting, no doubt. I tried to open my mouth, but my spine locked up, and what came out was: “What game, _exactly_ , are you playing here, and why do you need me? You said you’d tell me if I worked with you.”

A snort, brief and sharply amused. “I didn’t specify _when_ I’d tell you.” I peeled back from her as my lip curled into a snarl of irritation—she’d gotten one over me _again,_ damn her. She shrugged, looking delighted by my annoyance. “Maybe I resent the idea of you letting those sycophants and war-mongering fools in the Spring Court make you feel inadequate. Maybe I indeed enjoy seeing you squirm. Or _maybe_ —”

_“I get it.”_

Elizabeth snorted once more, shaking her head. “You really don’t. But go on—try to read it, Meliodas.”

 _Prick_. I snatched the paper to me, nearly ripping it in half in the process. I looked at the first word, sounding it out  in my head before slowly, hesitantly speaking it aloud. “Y-you…” The next I figured out with a combination of my silent pronunciation and logic, a little bit easier than the first. “Look…”

“Good,” she murmured, leaning forward a bit more, her forearms resting on the table. I wasn’t sure if she was being patronizing or actually trying to encourage me—probably the former. Either way, it was irritating, and distracting besides.

 “I didn’t ask for your approval.”

Elizabeth merely chuckled.

“Ab… Absolutely.” It took me longer than  I wanted to admit to figure that out, to puzzle out which letters were silent and which were spoken. The next word was even worse, appearing to be just a collection of loops. “De…del…” I deigned to glance at her, brows raised.

“Delicious,” she purred, looking…anticipatory. Eager. Almost _excited_.

My brows now knotted. I read the next two words, shock and embarrassment and fury rising up in me, then whipped my face toward her. “ _You look absolutely delicious today, Meliodas_?! That’s what you wrote?” I wanted to claw off the wicked smirk she gave me in return, hands curling to fists. “Wh—"

She leaned back in her seat, utterly unbothered, relaxed and amused and yet poised to strike like the snake she was. As our eyes met, her diamond-hard blue flashing tauntingly, sharp claws of moonlight and shadows caressed my mind and her light, lilting voice whispered inside my head, the purr of it like thunder: _It’s true, isn’t it_?

I jolted back, my chair groaning as the carved legs shrieked across the marble floors. “ _Stop that_!”

But those claws now dug in, steel slicing into the murky darkness of my mind and pinning it like a bird beneath a cat’s paw—and my entire body, my heart, my lungs, my _blood_ yielded to her grip, utterly at her whim as she said, _The fashion of the Night Court suits you, Meliodas darling_.

I couldn’t move in my seat, couldn’t even blink. She had pinned me, _tamed_ me, forced me to do her bidding within seconds, just by touching her mind to mine. One attack, and I was compromised.

 _This is what happens if you let those shields down even for a second. All it takes is one person a little crueler than me with my breed of abilities, and your mind is like_ clay _—taken apart, formed, molded to whatever they wish. I’m barely touching your mind right now. All I’d have to do is dig a little deeper, push a little harder, all it would take is half a thought and half a second and any self, any soul, any identity of your own would be ripped away to shreds._ Distantly, sweat slid down my temple. _Fear_. I was afraid.

 _You should be afraid. You should be_ terrified _of these vulnerabilities, of how easy it is to take away_ Meliodas Asmodei _and replace him with another’s will, another’s desires, another’s thoughts and identity. You should be thanking the gods-damned Cauldron that in the past three months, no one with my sort of gifts has run into you. Now shove me out._

I couldn’t. Those claws of midnight and moonshine were everywhere—digging into every thought, every piece of self, and I could _see_ what she was talking about, see how easily it would be able to take a piece out and for her to put something back in that _wasn’t me_.  She dug in a little deeper as I stayed trapped, paralyzed, and her voice echoed—no longer soft and sibilant, but a roar. A _demand_.

 _Shove. Me. Out_.

I didn’t know where to begin. I blindly pushed and slammed myself into her, struggling against those creeping claws that had reached _everywhere_ , as if I were a top loosed in  a circle of mirrors. Spinning and spinning in a room of locked doors, with _no way out._

Her laughter, low and soft, filled my mind, my ears. _That way, Meliodas_.

In answer, a little open path gleamed inside my mind. The road out, a hole in the dam that was Elizabeth’s psyche blocking mine. It’d take me forever to unhook each deadly, mind-numbing claw and shove the mass of her presence out that narrow opening, though, and the impossibility of the task threatened to swallow me. If only I could wash it away—

A wave. A wave of self, of me, of _Meliodas_ to sweep all of _her_ out—

I didn’t let her see the plan take form as I rallied myself into a cresting wave and _struck_. The claws loosened—reluctantly. As if letting me win this round, because she knew _this_ was all I could muster. Aloud she merely said, “Good.”

My bones, my breath and blood, they were _mine_ again, commanded by me and me alone, as they should be. I slumped in my seat, exhausted and _relieved_.

“Not yet,” she said before I could drift fully into that haze of exhaustion. “Shield. Block me out so I can’t get back in. Enemies won’t wait before taking a second pass and neither will I.”

I already wanted to go somewhere quiet and sleep for a long, long while. My eyes drifted closed from pure exhaustion, uncaring despite the terror of the last few moments—and flew open again.

Claws of rippling quicksilver and smoke at that outer  layer of my mind, stroking, crooning, _seeping in_ —

I imagined a  wall of diamond snapping down, black as night and a foot thick. The claws retracted a breath before the wall sliced them cleanly in two, locking her out of my mind.

Elizabeth was grinning, wide and bright and surprisingly cheery as she withdrew, leaning across the table. “Excellent. Blunt, a little unwieldy, but effective. Precision will come with time and practice.”

Anger clouded my vision again, scarlet and swirling, and I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the piece of paper and shredded it in two, then four, the action giving me far more satisfaction than it should have. “You’re a snake.”

“Oh, most _definitely_. But look at you—you read that whole sentence, kicked me out of your mind, _and_ shielded. Fantastic work. I’ve seen High Fae born who learn slower than you.”

“Don’t condescend to me.”

“I’m not. You’re reading at a level far higher than I anticipated.”

That burning returned, creeping up my neck and across my face. “But mostly illiterate.” One sentence wasn’t enough for speeches and thank-you notes and treaties and what Zaneli might need me to do as her consort. One sentence wasn’t enough for novels. One sentence just— _wasn’t good enough._

“At this point, it’s about practice, spelling, a splash of grammar and more practice—which you can get plenty of in the Spring Court if the library I remember still exists in that manor. You could be reading novels by Nynsar. And if you keep improving, practicing, and adding to those shields, you might very well keep me out entirely by then.” She seemed, surprisingly enough, delighted by the prospect, her eyes shining gleefully.

 _Nynsar_. It’d be the first Zaneli and her court would celebrate  in nearly fifty years. Mael had banned it on a whim, along with a few other small but beloved Fae holidays that he had deemed _unnecessary,_ or rededicated to himself and his hell-court’s savagery. But Nynsar was months from now. “Is it even possible—to truly keep you out?” After feeling those mental claws rip into every part of me, I had to _know_ —had to figure out whether blocking her was an exercise in futility or something worth continuing.

“Not likely, but who knows how deep that power of yours goes? How much you got from me when you were _reborn?”_ Her eyes flashed with wicked glee. “Keep practicing and we’ll see what happens. Besides, it’s not just me you want to keep out.”

 _Then there are others—like her?_ “And will I still be bound by this bargain at Nynsar, too?” _Say no,_ I willed her. _Say you’ll set me free. Say it was just for this week—this_ day, _even. Just say no._

Heavy, unyielding silence, the unholy delight in those blue eyes dimming to the dullness of storm clouds.

I pushed, _forced_ myself to push her further, as far as I dared. “After—after what happened—” I couldn’t  mention specifics on what had occurred Under-the-Mountain, what she’d done for me during that fight with Mael, what she’d done after— “I think we can agree that there’s nothing I owe you anymore, and nothing you can give me. This bargain is useless.”

Her gaze was unflinching, uncaring. “Oh?”

I blazed on, the words dancing like fire on my tongue as I wielded them, my own claws against her shields. “Isn’t it enough that we’re all free of him?” I gestured widely with one hand, splayed my tattooed hand on the table, the dark eye of ink gazing up at us.   “At the end—after what you did, what you _said,_ I thought you were _different_ , that they were wrong. That the coldness, the cruelty, that amusement, that it was all a mask you liked keeping up.” My fingers dug into the wood of the table. “But you took me away and you’re keeping me here and it’s—you’re—” _Exactly what they said you’d be, a liar and a manipulator and a wolf in Fae’s clothing._ But none of those words would convince her to break the bond.

Her eyes darkened. “I’m not your enemy, Meliodas.”

“Zaneli says you are.” I curled the fingers of my tattooed hand into a fist. “Everyone else says you are.”

“Everyone else is _dull,_ darling, and letting them form your opinions will make you even duller than them.” She leaned back in her chair again, but her face was grave. “I want to know what _you_ think.”

“I think,” I said, “you’re doing a damned good job of making me agree with them.”

“Liar,” she purred, though the look in her eyes was still cold and flat. “Did you even tell your friends, your precious Zaneli about _what I did to you_ Under-the-Mountain?”

So that comment at breakfast _had_ gotten under her skin, wedged somewhere beneath the mask of blue eyes like skies on the edge of night and a smirk like the one a panther gives seconds before tearing into its prey. “I don’t want to talk about   anything related to that. With you or them.”

“Of _course_ not. Go back to hiding under fake smiles and flowers like the human boy from years ago.” Elizabeth leaned forward, lips pulled back in a smile that was more of a snarl. “Talk to me about my masks all you want, Meliodas _darling,_ but the truth is you keep one up too, all for their sake. To heal your precious Zaneli’s traumas, you’ll let your own fester, to keep her content, you’ll let yourself rot away in that manor—I _know_ it chokes you to death, the cloying scent of roses and flowers and those _stares_ , as if those _bastards_ could ever understand what was done to you, that you shattered yourself to save them, and you let Zaneli and Ludociel and Jenna coddle you because it keeps them happy and you don’t give a _damn_ about yourself, about what it’s doing to you, so you’ll keep up a smile and pretend everything’s perfect.” Her eyes were blazing, and though the pitch of her voice never changed, I could feel it filling the room. 

Worst of all, every word struck _true_. “I don’t _let_ them coddle me—”

“They had you wrapped up like a present yesterday. Like you were _her_ reward, when I recall _you_ destroying yourself for _her_ , to free her from Mael. When it was _your dead body_ —” She stopped abruptly, closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, sharply before leaning back and opening them, deadly calm once more.

 It wasn’t true. It was a reward for _both_ of us; she was my prize and I was hers, we had fought _together_ —she’d fought for nearly fifty years, and I just got in the final blow. “So?”

 _“So?”_ A flicker of rage crossed her face like a lightning strike, then it was gone, leaving a female carved from marble and moonlight and cold as ice.

“I’m ready to be taken home.”

“Where you’ll be stuck in that gilded, flowery cage for the rest of your life, especially once you start giving her heirs.” She laughed, not her usual silvery, rippling laugh, but something ugly. Bitter and _dark_. “I can’t wait to see what Ludociel does when he gets his hands on _them_. Probably make a spectacle of it, make it look good for _him._ ”

“You don’t seem to have a particularly high opinion of him.”

Something cold and predatory crept into her eyes—pure, untamed night swimming in those cobalt irises as she tilted her head. “No, I can’t say that I do. Utmost respect for the High Priests, of course, but Ludociel is just…I’m not surprised he wanted a foothold in your court.”  Her lips quirked up in a cruel, vicious grin before she gestured to a blank piece of paper. “Start copying the alphabet. Until your letters are perfect. Each time you get through all twenty-six, raise and lower your mental shield thrice, until it comes to you like _that_.” She snapped her delicate fingers, the sharp sound ringing through the air. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“What?”

She rolled her eyes, spoke to me like a tutor to a particularly dense child. “Copy. The. Alphabet. Until—”

“I heard what you said.” Bitch. Bitch, bitch, _bitch_.

“Then get to work.” Elizabeth uncoiled to her feet. “And at least have the decency to only call me a bitch when your shields are back up.” Her lips curled up, wickedly amused. “But it’s all sticks and stones, Meliodas darling—sticks and stones.”

She vanished into a ripple of darkness before I realized that I’d let the wall of adamant fade again—and let out a frustrated scream that filled the empty palace.

* * *

 

By the time Elizabeth returned, my mind felt like a mud puddle. A deep, sluggish, soupy mud puddle. Maybe with a frog in it at this point.

Cauldron, I was losing it.

I spent the entire hour doing as I’d been ordered, though I’d flinched  at every sound from the nearby stairwell: quiet steps of servants (including Risling and Vervada, who visited with a small tray of sandwiches and managed to coax me into eating one), the flapping of sheets being changed, someone humming a beautiful and winding melody—Diane, I’d guessed, though she hadn’t come in to say hello. Which was probably for the best—getting attached to those in an enemy court, no matter how kind and un-Elizabeth-ish they seemed to be, was probably a bad idea, especially since I’d never see her again when I or Zaneli broke the bond.

 _When,_ not _if._ Because it would have to break eventually. I’d find a way.

Beyond the background noise from other people, the chatter of birds  that dwelled in the unnatural warmth of the mountain or in the many potted citrus trees filled the air with a surprisingly pleasant sort of white noise. No sign of my impending torment, no torturers or spies or courtiers with wandering eyes come to examine me. No sentries, even, to monitor me—not like the Spring Court, awash with Zaneli’s sentries and private soldiers. I might as well have had the entire place to myself.

Which was good, as my attempts to lower and raise that mental shield often resulted in my face being twisted or strained or pinched into the strangest expressions—and then trying not to laugh or sneer at my own reflection would bring that wall tumbling back down and the gates to my mind wide open again.

“Not bad,” Elizabeth said, peering over my shoulder.

She’d appeared moments before, a healthy distance away, and if I hadn’t known better, I might have thought it was because she didn’t want to startle me. As if she’d known about the time Zaneli had crept up behind me, and panic had hit me so hard I’d knocked her on her ass with a punch to her stomach. I’d blocked it out—the surprise and betrayal on her face, how shockingly _easy_ it had been to take him off his feet, the humiliation of having my stupid, all-consuming terror put out in the open for her to see…

Knowing her, though, she _had_ seen it—in my mind if not in the moment itself. But hopefully after all _this,_ I’d be able to shut her out.

Elizabeth scanned the pages I’d scribbled on, sorting through them, tracking my progress with sharp, glittering blue eyes. Tattooed fingers sorted through page after page, setting them down as her eyebrows slowly arched upwards, studying, examining, _judging._ I fought the urge to succumb to anger at her self-satisfied smile, instead pouring everything I had into the wall in my mind, waiting for her attack.

Then, a scrape of moonlight-claws inside my mind—that only sliced against black, glittering adamant.

I threw my lingering will into that wall as the claws pushed, testing oh-so thoroughly for weak spots…and kept her _out._

“Well, well,” Elizabeth purred, those mental claws withdrawing. “Hopefully we’ll be getting a good night’s rest at last, if you can manage to keep the wall up while you sleep.” She sniffed, affecting a petulant tone. “Though I doubt a _beginner_ can keep that up for long, hmm?”

I dropped the shield, sent a single word blasting down that mental bridge between us, and hauled the walls back up. Behind it, my mind wobbled like jelly, my hands following suit. I needed a nap. Desperately. And probably for the next thousand years.

She laughed, looking delighted. “Bitch I might be, but look at you. Maybe we’ll get to have some fun with these lessons after all.”

* * *

 

I was still scowling at Elizabeth’s back as I kept a healthy ten steps behind her—ten steps too far for me to throw a punch, which was e _xceedingly_ tempting at the moment, even more so than usual—while she led me through the shimmering halls of the main building, the sweeping, sky-piercing    mountains and  blisteringly blue sky the only witnesses to our silent trek to…wherever the hell she was taking me this time.

I was too drained from anger and exhaustion to demand where we were now going, and she didn’t bother explaining as she led me up, up—until we entered a circular chamber at the top of a tower.

A round table of black stone occupied the center, while the largest stretch of uninterrupted gray stone wall was covered in a massive map of our world. It had been marked and flagged and pinned dozens of times over, judging from the puncture marks and colored pinheads, though whatever reasoning it followed escaped me. My gaze drifted to the windows throughout the room—so many that it felt utterly exposed, breathable, especially for a place as secret and silent as this strategy room of sorts was clearly meant to be. The perfect home, I supposed, for a High Lady blessed with wings.

Elizabeth stalked to the table, where there was another map spread, figurines dotting its surface. A map of Britannia—and Erebus, the island empire that had sent Mael. Every court in our land had been marked, along with villages and cities and rivers and mountain passes. Every court…but the Night Court.

The  vast, northern territory that Elizabeth ruled was utterly blank. Not even a mountain range had been etched in. Strange that the place she called home would be empty, unless she knew it so well she could draw it from memory—or she was hiding it from _me_. More likely, though, was that it was part of some strategy I didn’t understand—not yet, at least. Not unless I dared to ask, to learn for the sake of _home._

I found Elizabeth watching me—her raised brows enough to make me shut my mouth against  the forming question.

“Nothing to ask?” she inquired—a question she damn well knew the answer to. _Prick._

“Nothing I want to ask _you_.”

A feline smirk danced on her lips, but Elizabeth just tilted her chin toward the map on the wall. “What do you see?”

“Is this some sort of way of convincing me to embrace my reading lessons?” Indeed, I couldn’t decipher any of the writing, only the shapes of things. Like the wall between Britannia and the nameless human realms, its massive line bisecting our world. “High Fae cartography?”

She shrugged. “Humor me. Tell me what you see.”

“A world divided in two.” _Faerie and human, predator and prey, enemies to the last—forever divided. Locked out and away from the wonders we could share with each other._

She angled her head toward me, blue eyes glowing nearly black in the light. “And do you think it should remain that way?”

The word _no_ rose on my tongue first, some part of me rejoicing at the idea of being able to cross and see them all again…but the idea of less friendly Fae crossing the wall hit just seconds later. _Estarossa. Zeldris. Mother._ I whipped my head toward her. “My family—” I halted on the word, froze in horror. I should have known better than to admit to having a family, that I still cared for them, for humans, a species that Fae regarded as prey or amusements or slaves in the making—now that she knew of my brothers, she could find them, hurt them, twist their minds…

“Your human family,” Elizabeth finished, and she sounded more serious, more concerned than _interested_ , “would be deeply impacted if the wall came down, wouldn’t they? So close to its border… If they’re lucky, they’ll flee across the ocean before it happens.”

“ _Will_ it happen?”

Elizabeth didn’t break my stare, those fierce blue eyes holding not a hint of a lie, no spark of amusement or laughter. Just cold, stark honesty. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

“Because war is coming, Meliodas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOOM. War is coming, and Elizabeth is making plans. Only question is, where does Meliodas fall in all this? Hmmm....


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth promises war, Meliodas has some thoughts, and Zaneli is never pleased. So, the usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Y'all are getting a burst of all my prewritten chapters, because I'm going to writing camp for two weeks and will be laptop free, which means no access to the files necessary for this project. However, I'll be online for three hours (9am-12am eastern Atlantic time) every day, so please please pleaaaaaaaaaase review! It's reviews that keep creators like me going--after all, everything we make is for you guys, so it's wonderful to hear what you think!

_War._

The word reverberated throughout the room like the terrible clang of a gong, turning my blood to ice in my veins. I stared up at her, a shudder running through my body. Zaneli had warned me, everyone had warned me— _Elizabeth is insatiable, the Night Court is full of war-mongering fools, her ancestors were savages and so is she. She will come for Britannia eventually, and then for the mortal lands._

War. A war with _High Fae,_ with creatures who were as different from humans as lions were to housecats. Oh, we looked similar, spoke the same tongues, walked on two legs and saw through two eyes and heard through two ears, but…High Fae (and even the lesser faeries) were so much _more_ than we were. Immortal, their lives spanning _thousands_ of years (spanning _forever,_ if they were not taken by blade or sickness first), impossibly strong and impossibly swift, and capable of _magic_ beyond all that—Zaneli’s shapeshifting, Elizabeth’s manipulations of shadows and minds, these were just _samplings_ of the kinds of magic that ran wild in Britannia, not to mention the raw power that brimmed in every single one of them, the ability to command pure _force_ in those terrifying blasts. Every Fae could cast magic, whether they were human-looking High Fae with their angular faces and pointed ears or lesser faeries like Derieri and the wild, ancient monsters who roamed Britannia. To face an army of immortal warriors, an army that could weather more pain than the greatest of kings and heal within minutes of being injured, an army that had _monsters_ in its ranks bowing to the creatures that wore humanoid faces—the humans would fall in _moments._

An invasion—led by a warrior queen whose power was unmatched by the other High Ladies, a female who could break High Fae minds with half a thought. Human minds…she could probably tear dozens of them to shreds in _seconds_.

It wouldn’t be a war. It would be a _massacre_.

“Don’t invade,” I breathed. I’d beg her for this, if I had to, I would get down on my knees, I would _crawl_ if it meant protecting the humans below the wall. If it meant protecting my family. “Don’t invade, _please—_ they can’t fight back, not against you, I will do _anything—”_

Elizabeth tilted her head, something flickering across her face that I almost recognized, something like disappointment…and _hurt._ “You truly believe I’m a monster,” she said quietly, “even after everything.”

_“Please—”_

Blue eyes narrowed at me, before she glanced away. Shadows spread across the moonstone pillars, in the shape of those magnificent, terrible wings I’d caught a glimpse of at breakfast, before evaporating, the light breeze winding around her body before stilling. Some piece of her, some of the sharpness to her claws, had dissolved, a piece of the mask I’d said I didn’t believe in. “I will not invade the mortal lands. Nor,” she added sharply, turning to me, once more a female of silver blades and a shroud of night, once more masked and proud, “will I leave them to fend for themselves when the true invasion comes.”

Some of the weight on my shoulders lifted, though my heart still pounded for terror. I waited for her to continue— _who’s coming, if not you, who would attack a defenseless people, which Court, how do I save them—_ but she just looked at me and snapped, “Bring your shield back up.”

It had fallen. The wall of black diamond I surrounded my mind with had fallen, leaving it vulnerable to her, to any of her kind who lurked in this place. I struggled for a moment to haul it back into place, but I was already exhausted and the promise of war—ringing like a prophecy, sharp and fierce and undeniable—made it impossible for me to focus. _Mother. Estarossa. Zeldris—_

“Shield. _Up.”_

The raw, pure command in that voice, the voice of an _empress_ , made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I couldn’t have refused even if I’d tried, and I was too shaken to protest as I clawed the shield of ebony diamond back up around my mind piece by twisting piece. Only when it was fully up did she speak again, her voice as deadly as it was soft. “Did you really think it would end with Mael?”

I froze at his name, slowly raised my eyes back to hers. “Zaneli hasn’t said…” Anything. She hadn’t told me a thing, had even said that there was nothing going on. Did she think me so fragile, so breakable that I’d fall to pieces at the mere mention of another fight? And all those meetings, those patrols I hadn’t been allowed out on, the tension she spoke of in the Court. She must’ve known, even if it was just a rumor—had known and had lied to my _face._

 _You let them coddle you,_ Elizabeth had said, and I hadn’t believed her. But here—here was proof that she, _they_ thought me content, complacent, too weak to handle this. To handle the _knowledge_ of conflict, much less the battles themselves.

 _But they were perfectly content to sit back and let me break myself for them—for her—Under-the-Mountain,_ I thought, and nearly blamed it on her…but the shield was up, and I couldn’t sense those claws whispering things to me. Which meant that, momentary as it had been, it was…almost _true._

“The King of Erebus has been planning this for more than a century.” Elizabeth’s voice shocked me out of my thoughts, the High Lady stalking over to the map and bracing one slim, pale hand against it. “Mael was…an experiment, a test to see how easy it would be to conquer a territory and then control it, see how one of his commanders might govern us. One that you, yes, foiled, but the King was undoubtedly prepared for that. He’ll be coming, and with our courts still vulnerable, he’ll be coming _soon_.”

For immortals, for High Fae—for any faeries, really, but especially those as long-lived as Zaneli and Elizabeth, forty-nine years was the blink of an eye, was _nothing._ If the King was as old as them—older, probably—I had no doubt that he could plan a war and sow the seeds of it centuries in advance. “Will he attack Britannia first?”

Elizabeth tilted her head toward me, before tapping the massive island of Britannia on the map. “The King wants to reclaim the human lands, to bring things back to the way they were before the wall—High Fae masters, human slaves. He wants to reclaim the human lands on the main continent and below the wall, and most likely the Fae that live here as well. Britannia is all that stands between Erebus and the continent, which means if we can’t bring his fleet down here…”

I latched onto the edge of the round table, gripping it to keep my legs from giving out from under me. _War. War is coming, Erebus is coming to make slaves of humanity once more and the Seven Courts of Britannia are all that stand in its way._

Elizabeth continued on, beginning to pace back and forth. “He’ll seek to remove Britannia swiftly and thoroughly and bring down the wall during his battle with us. The fight would distract the kingdoms of the continent from realizing that the wall between our race and the humans has fallen. There are holes in it already, but they’re far too small for him to bring his army through. No, he’ll want it down, and he’ll want it down _fast,_ so he can make use of the panic it causes _.”_

Each breath was like swallowing broken glass, clawing me to pieces from the inside out. “When…when will he invade?" The wall had gone up over five hundred years ago after the War between humans and Fae, had held firm for five centuries since, but the holes had allowed the worst of the worst through, the most monstrous of Fae creatures coming across to prey on innocent humans. I’d been raised on horror stories about what a single Fae monster could do, had done to humans. The thought of an army of them with no wall to turn them away, to keep Erebus from bringing back the ancient order of slaves and masters…I felt sick, bile starting to rise in my throat before I forced it down.

“That is the question.” I lifted my head to meet her gaze—no mischief, no humor. Just calm, cold command, the mask of the queen. “And why I brought you here.”

I wait for the punchline, for a huff of laughter, for “I’m merely toying with you, Meliodas _darling.”_ Instead she just kept speaking, drumming her fingers against the surface of the map. “I don’t know when or where he plans to begin his attack on Britannia, where his allies here might lie. There are…cowards who would bow rather than fight his armies once more, and those who want the world to return to the old ways.”

As she spoke, shadows swirled around the pale floor beneath her feet, agitated—the same way that _thing_ in my blood did whenever I was reminded of Mael, of those trials and those I had killed. As though memories loosened her grip on the mask, on her magic, on _herself._ “Did…” I hesitated, before barreling on. “Did you fight in the War?” That ancient fight of five centuries ago, the one that resulted in the wall—faerie against human, and all for the sake of something that might be erased by Erebus in a single heartbeat.

For a heartbeat, I thought she wouldn’t answer, the shadows cloaking her face for a second before receding into her—and then she nodded. “I was young, for a Fae, young and foolish and fresh from my training. My mother sent aid to the mortal-faerie alliance on the continent, and I convinced her to let me take a legion of fighters.” She stalked slowly around the table to join me, her gaze ages away even though it was set on the map. “I was stationed in the south right where the fighting was thickest—where it was—” She inhaled slowly, squared her shoulders. “I have no interest in seeing such wanton bloodshed ever again.”

Elizabeth blinked before I could even try to speak, as if pulling herself out of the nightmares playing in her mind. “But the King won’t make that play this time, not at first. The bastard’s too clever to waste his forces here and give the continent enough time to rally against him. He’s going to use stealth and trickery to bring Britannia down and the wall tumbling after it, weaken us first and slip through the cracks in our defenses before moving to destroy us. Mael was the first step in that plan.”

“How so?” I managed to rasp out through the horror swirling within me, watching those blue eyes for any change, for a light that would tell me there was hope, darkness that said it was futile.

“Look at what we’ve been left with, Meliodas.” She swept her hand out over the map, over the Seasonal Courts and Solar Courts, over the unmarked Night Court. “Untested, newly-made High Ladies, broken courts with High Priests angling for control like vultures around a carcass, and a people who have always been the masters finally realizing how powerless we might truly be. We have been cut wide open for Erebus to sink its claws into whenever the invasion comes.”

She was right. She was terrifyingly, utterly right, and if war really was on the horizon… “Why are you telling me this?” _Why reveal your suspicions, your fears to the future consort of your enemy?_ And what she’d said about the High Priests—Ludociel was ambitious, but he was Zaneli’s friend. My friend, of a sort, and the only ally we’d have against the other High Priests. Elizabeth’s dislike of him aside, he could be useful.

“Two reasons.” When Elizabeth looked up at me, her blue eyes were flat, like polished river stones rather than the usual brilliant cobalt. “One, you’re…close to Zaneli. She has soldiers, but also long-existing ties to Erebus—”

My eyes snapped down, to the gold band on my finger, emeralds ringing it. “She’d _never_ help the king—”

She held up one hand, stopping my fervent protests in their tracks. “I want to know if Zaneli’s willing to put aside our old feud to fight with us. If she can use those connections to our advantage. As she and I have rather s _trained_ relations, you have the dubious pleasure of being the middleman in this mess.”

I hesitated, dropped my eyes to the map. “She doesn’t inform me of these things.” _Believe me, I’ve asked._

Though maybe I hadn’t pushed hard enough.

Her eyes flashed. “Then it’s high time that she did. And it’s time you insisted.” Her gaze slid back to the map again, to Britannia—to the small, unguarded mortal territory below the wall. To where my mortal family still lived in peace, believing all was right with the world. My mouth went dry at the thought of what the attack would do to them—to sweet, gentle Estarossa, who loved flowers and animals, to proud, unbending Zeldris, who burned like fire. To my mother, who’d already lost everything once.

“What’s the other reason?”

At that, her lips quirked upwards, her grin sharp as a knife. “You’re a hunter and a survivor, which comes with a…very particular skillset that I need. Rumor has it that you caught a Suriel.”

 _The Suriel._ A species of faerie that could tell only the truth once caught, could answer whatever question the capturer asked of it. I _had_ caught one, but I had no idea why Elizabeth, who was so much _stronger_ than me, would need me to do it. “It wasn’t that hard.”

“I’ve tried and failed. Twice. But that’s not the point.” Her eyes sparkled for the first time since she’d said the word w _ar._ “I saw you trap the Middengard Wyrm like a rabbit. I need you to help me track down what I need.”

My brow furrowed. “What do you need?” It had to have something to do with reading and shielding, or else she wouldn’t have bothered to start teaching me. _People like…like you?”_

“Oh, you’ll find out eventually.”

I scowled, wondering why I’d even bothered to ask. “There have to be a dozen hunters more suited to this than me in your territory alone.”

“Perhaps. But you’re the only one I trust.”

 _Well, that’s…foolish._ “I could betray you at any moment,” I pointed out. “What’s to stop me from telling Zaneli everything?”

Elizabeth gave that brilliant, catlike smirk again. “Oh, I have no doubt that you could. That you will. But it won’t matter in the end.” I gritted my teeth, about to snap back at her viciously when she added, “And then there’s the matter of your powers.”

The pounding in my blood, the thing I’d sensed writhing under my skin. “I don’t have any powers,” I protested—too fast for it to sound like anything but denial or a lie.

She sank into one of the chairs surrounding the map table, crossed her legs and leaned forward. “ _Really?_ Speed that catches even me off guard, strength like a High Lady’s…oh, believe me, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you and Zaneli were doing a s _tellar_ job of pretending you’re just an ordinary High Fae. That the powers you’re displaying aren’t usually the first symptoms of a High Lady’s daughter becoming her Heir. But by all means, keep the charade up. I’m sure it’ll help when Erebus comes knocking. Unless…” Her eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t know?”

My fingers curled into fists at my sides—for a moment, I’d forgotten how insolent she was, how smug and utterly _wicked_ she could be. _“I don’t have powers,”_ I repeated. “And I’m not a High Lady. Can’t be, remember?” I raised my eyebrows at her, waiting for her answer.

Silver hair stirred in an unfelt breeze as she rested her chin in her palm, brow furrowed in a display of mock-thoughtfulness. “Maybe not, but you were give life by all seven of us—reborn, as it were, due to our own vitality. Your essence is tied to ours, born of the seven of us combined. What if we gave you more than expected, more than _intended?”_ Her gaze raked over me, savage and calculating. “What if you could stand against the seven of us, hold your own, a High Lord?”

 _High Lord._ Zaneli had told me there was no such thing as a High Lord, that my title would be the same as Jenna’s father’s, as Jelamet’s consort—Lord Meliodas and nothing less. Nothing _more._ There was no way for a High Fae male to rule in a land where only the daughter of a daughter could take the throne. “There are no High Lords.”

Elizabeth huffed before shaking her head, silver hair dancing like a spray of moonlight behind her. “Add _that_ to the list of things to discuss—but yes, Meliodas, there _can_ be High Lords. And no, maybe you’re not one of them, but what if you were _like them?_ What if you could shapeshift, tear apart minds, set the world ablaze or freeze an entire room—an entire army? Do you know what that could mean for us in this war?” She rose to her feet, prowled forward until she stood directly in front of me, the winter wind seeming to howl viciously outside in answer to her words as I stared up at her, paralyzed. “Do you know how it could tear you apart from the inside out if you don’t master them?”

“Okay, _first_ off—” I found myself wishing I was taller, so that I wouldn’t have to look _up_ at her as I glared— “You need to stop asking so many rhetorical questions. Secondly, even if I _had_ powers—”

“You do, and you know it. I’ve seen it writhing beneath your skin, saw how you nearly unleashed it before I arrived.” The pounding in my blood, the fury in my bones I’d felt building— _no._ “But you need to learn to control them. To _fight.”_

I started shaking my head before she even finished. “Zaneli won’t allow it.”

Rage flashed in brilliant blue eyes, quashed a second later. _“Zaneli,”_ she said, drawing the word out as if testing it on her tongue, “is not your keeper, and you damn well know it.”

“I am her subject, and she is my High Lady—”

“You are _no one’s subject.”_

I went still as stone at the flash of shockingly white teeth, the shadows of wings that spiraled outwards, the power and _fury_ radiating from her.

“I will only say this once, so listen well, Meliodas _darling.”_ There was a terrifying smile on Elizabeth’s face as she stalked back to the map spread across the wall. “You can be a pawn in this game, another toy for others to play with—you can be someone’s _reward_ and spend the rest of eternity bowing and scraping and pretending you’re less than Zaneli, than Ludociel, than any of us. And if that’s the life you want, then fine. A damn shame and a loss for the world as a whole, but I won’t stop you.” Shadows rippled around her, pure night seeming to leak from her skin. “But I know you—far better than you realize, and I don’t believe for a damn _second_ that you’re fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on her ass for fifty years, and sat on her ass again while you tore yourself to pieces—”

_“Shut up.”_

_“Or,”_ she plowed on, “you’ve got another choice. You can take control of your own destiny, master whatever powers were passed to you, and _make every damn second count._ You can play a role in this war, help us protect the things you care for. Because it’s coming, this war, whether you like it or not, and do not try to delude yourself that any of the Fae—that your precious _Zaneli_ —will give two shits about your mortal family when our whole territory is gonna be turned into the site of a massacre.”

I stared at the map—at Britannia, and the tiny piece of land at the southern tip. Where I was born, raised, where my family remained—where they were vulnerable.

“You want to save the mortal realm?” she demanded. “Then _fight_. Make Britannia stop to listen when you speak. Became vital. Become a weapon. Because there might be a day, Meliodas, when you’re the only thing standing between the King of Erebus and your human family.”

I lifted my gaze to her slowly, a weight settling in my stomach, my chest tight as I tried to inhale. As if she hadn’t just knocked the world from under my feet, Elizabeth said, “Think it over throughout this week. Ask Zaneli or charming Ludociel, if it helps you sleep at night. But it’s _your choice—_ no one else’s.”

* * *

 

I didn’t see Elizabeth for the rest of the week. Or Diane, for that matter. The only people I saw for the rest of the week were Vervada and Risling, who delivered my meals, helped tidy up my chamber, and occasionally asked how I was doing. The only evidence I had that Elizabeth was there at all were the blank copies of the alphabet that appeared in that curtained-off alcove, along with several sentences I was to write, swapping out words, each more vain and arrogant than the last.

 _Elizabeth is the most beautiful High Lady. Elizabeth is the most delightful High Lady. Elizabeth is the most cunning High Lady._ Over and over and over, one miserable sentence with one word of varying degrees of obnoxious flattery to it. And every day, a set of instructions—shield up, shield down, until I could hold it up even subconsciously, a feat I had yet to manage.

I had no idea how she could tell if I obeyed or not, but I threw myself into my lessons, determined to excel if only for Zaneli’s sake. I raised and lowered the shields, wrote the alphabet, the sentences, left my head aching and my mind whirling every time I finished for the day. But I had nothing else to do, and it was, loathe though I was to admit it, worth learning.

My nightmares still struck, left me groggy and sweaty and gasping for breath. But I didn’t find myself running to the toilet to vomit, didn’t feel the walls closing in on me and trapping me in a cage of stone. The starlight was bright enough to remind where I was, who I was—that I was _free,_ at least of Under-the-Mountain. No matter how much I resented being here, it was better, I admitted, than throwing up every night.

The day before our week was finally over, I found myself dragging myself to my little table, grimacing at the prospect of those _delightful_ sentences and mental acrobatics, when Diane and Elizabeth’s voices floated toward me. I didn’t bother disguising my footsteps—the veranda was a public space, after all—as I neared the seating area. Elizabeth was pacing before the open plunge off the mountainside, Diane lounging in a plush, cream-colored armchair.

“King would want to know that,” Diane was saying, usual bubbly cheer absent from her voice as those violet eyes tracked Elizabeth’s movements.

“King can go to hell,” Elizabeth sniped back, whirling on her. “He probably already knows anyway, given his…particular gifts.” I paused a healthy distance away, furrowing my brow. _King?_ They couldn’t possibly be talking about the King of Erebus; Elizabeth insisted that she had stood against him in the War, and the look in her eyes…she hadn’t been lying. _So who is that?_

“We played games last time and we _lost._ Badly,” Diane argued, rising to her feet and stepping toward the High Lady. “Look what happened, Elizabeth—there’s no way we can do that again. We’re _not_ going to do that again.”

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed, her face suddenly impassive. “You should be working. I gave you control for a reason.” Diane’s jaw tightened at that, and she turned to face me at last, giving me a smile that was more of a cringe. Elizabeth followed her line of sight, frowning in my direction. “Say what you came here to say, Diane,” she commanded, resuming her pacing—ignoring me, but not withholding information this time. As though she _wanted_ me to hear this, to know what was going on in her court.

Diane made a face in my direction, rolling her eyes, but she turned back to Elizabeth. “There was another attack—the temple in Istar. Almost every priest slain, the treasure trove within looted.”

Elizabeth went utterly still. I didn’t know what to process first—Diane’s news, or the pure, untamed _rage_ conveyed in one syllable: _“Who.”_

Diane shrugged, though the light in her violet eyes was incandescent with fury. “We don’t know yet. Same tracks left behind as before—small group, wounds inflicted by large blades, no signs as to how they got there or how they left. The bodies weren’t even found until a day later when a group of pilgrims visited.” A tight but sympathetic glance was sent my way as a tiny noise escaped me, horror humming in my bones. _By the Cauldron…_

Elizabeth, though… Shadows began to plume from her back, reaching up and out, spreading impossibly wide. The beast that lay under her skin seemed to rise to the surface as her grip on her rage loosened—and then those shadows melted away to flesh. To _wings_.

Magnificent, brutal, beautiful wings, membranous and clawed like a bat’s, dark as night and strong as hell. Her stance seemed to shift, the way she carried herself changing as those exquisite, terrible wings folded neatly behind her, as though some final piece in the puzzle of _Elizabeth_ had clicked into place. I stared, mesmerized despite the shock and worry swirling within me as she inquired, her voice midnight-soft and furious as a storm on the horizon, “What does King have to say about it?”

Another look from Diane, as though she was wondering if I should hear this. It was a look I’d seen from Jenna dozens of times, just before Zaneli would send me out. I stiffened, waiting for the dismissal, but she continued despite her obvious misgivings. “He’s pissed as hell. Gelda’s even angrier—she’s convinced it must be one of the rogue Illyrian war-bands, intent on claiming new territory before you can reclaim your position fully.”

Elizabeth tilted her head, considering. “It’s a possibility. Some of their clans readily bowed to Mael during the occupation. Trying to expand their borders could be their way of seeing how much they can get away with.” I hated the sound of Mael’s name, focused on it more than the information she was allowing me to glean.

“Gelda and King are waiting—” Diane cut herself off, gave me a sheepish smile and an apologetic wince. “They’re waiting in the usual spot for your orders, Elizabeth.”

Fine. It was fine, made sense, even. I’d seen that blank map of their court on the table. I was an enemy’s groom; this much information was already a weapon in my hands. Even if I had no idea where or what Istar was, Zaneli definitely would.

Elizabeth studied the open air again, the howling wind swirling around the dark clouds crossing the peak, looking mildly thoughtful. Good weather, I realized, for flying, and I wondered if I might get to see a glimpse of her crossing the skies today. “Winnowing in would be easier,” Diane warned, following her gaze.

Her lips twitched upward slightly, though it seemed forced. “Tell the bastards I’ll be there in a few hours.”

I got a wry grin from Diane, and then she vanished—disappeared into thin air in that strange manner I’d seen only a few High Fae use before. There wasn’t a single trace of her left behind, nothing but empty space, as though she’d turned invisible…but she truly wasn’t there. “How does the…vanishing work?” I asked quietly.

Elizabeth didn’t look at me, her gaze still fixed on the mountains, but she said, “Winnowing? It’s like…two different corners on a blanket. One point is your current place in the world, the other is your destination, and winnowing is sort of like bringing the corners together to fold the blanket. The magic does the work to bring you to the point you want to reach; longer jumps can create this…feeling, like you can see the dark fabric of the world as you move through it. Shorter jumps, from one end of the room to the other, hardly register. It’s a rare gift, incredibly useful, but only the stronger Fae have the ability.” She lifted one shoulder before letting it fall in a graceful shrug. “The stronger you are, the farther you can jump between points.”

I knew the explanation was as much for my benefit as it was to distract herself. But I found myself saying, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the temple—and the priests.” And I was. I’d seen leaders in the throes of grief over losing their people—Elizabeth’s control right now was remarkable, but I knew it must’ve hurt her in a way no lone warrior ever could.

That pure, undiluted wrath still glimmered in those eyes as she at last turned to me. “Plenty more people are going to die soon enough, anyway.” _Wanton bloodshed. Britannia turned into a slaughterhouse. War on the horizon._

Maybe that was why  she’d allowed me to get close, to overhear this conversation. To remind me of what might very well  happen  with Erebus. “What are…” I tried. “What are Illyrian war-bands?”

“Arrogant bunches of assholes, that’s what,” she muttered, flexing her fingers, shadows swirling on that tattooed skin. Her eyes flickered between blue and black, between a façade of calm and a rage so deep it leaked into her irises. “Self-entitled idiots, too.”

 _Which describes half the courtiers in Spring—and_ you. _Mostly._ I crossed my arms, waiting for her to explain further.

Elizabeth stretched her wings, the sunlight setting the velvety texture glowing with subtle color, deep purples and blue glittering amidst the black. “They’re a warrior-race within my lands. And they’ve been pains in my ass since the day I took the throne.”

“Some of them _supported_ Mael?” I didn’t bother disguising the disgust in my voice.

 Darkness danced in  the hall as that distant storm grew close enough to smother the sun. Shadows fell across her face, but not enough to disguise the wicked smile on her face, a slash of white in the darkness. “Mmm. But me and mine have… _enjoyed_ ourselves hunting them down these past few months. And ending them.” _Slowly_ was the word she didn’t need to add, a word I relished the thought of.

“That’s why  you stayed away—you were busy with that?”

“I was busy with many things.”

Not  an answer—of course it wasn’t. But it seemed she was done talking to me, and whoever Gelda and King were, meeting with them was far more important. I opened my mouth for a rather awkward farewell, but Elizabeth didn’t give me a chance to speak, didn’t so much as nod in my direction—before walking off the edge and vanishing into thin air.     

My heart stopped dead, but before I could cry out, she swept past, dark as a bolt of pure shadow and swift as the wicked, screaming wind between the peaks. A few booming wing beats had her vanishing  into the storm clouds, a glimmering streak of silver and indigo against the darkness.

“Well, good-bye to you too,” I muttered, stalking toward my little alcove and the work that awaited me, left with only the house’s protective shield and the howling wind of the winter storm for company. “And good riddance. _Prick.”_ I almost wished my shield was lowered so I could speak the words directly into her head, but I kept it in place. She had enough to deal with right now, and annoying her would do nothing for me.

Even as sleet and hail battered the wards surrounding the hall, even as I toiled over the sentences— _Elizabeth is interesting; Elizabeth is gorgeous; Elizabeth is flawless_ —and raised and lowered my shields of black diamond and brilliant steel until my mind was screeching in protest, I thought of what I’d heard, what they’d revealed to me. I wondered what Ludociel would know about the murders, if he knew any of the victims, knew what Istar was, knew what had happened at all. If temples were being targeted, he should know. Zaneli should know.

That final night, I could barely sleep—half from relief that it was nearly over, half from terror that perhaps Elizabeth really did have some final, nasty surprise in store. But the night and the storm    gave way to the dawn, and when the sun broke over the horizon, I was dressed before the last stars faded from the sky.

I’d taken to eating in my rooms over the course of the week, but I swept up the stairs, heading across that massive open space, to the table at  the far veranda where the High Lady of the Night Court and I had dined that first morning.

Sprawled languidly in her usual chair was Elizabeth, silver hair loosely braided with gold and spilling over her shoulder as she swirled a glass of amber liquid in her hand. She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, the collar of her deep purple jacket unbuttoned, the dove-gray shirt beneath as rumpled as the bangs that hung over her right eye. No wings, thankfully, though shadows still swirled around her menacingly. I wondered if she’d only just returned from wherever she’d met Diane and the others. Wondered what she’d learned—and then why I cared.

“It’s been a week,” I  said by way of greeting. “Take me home.”

Elizabeth took a long sip of whatever  was in her cup.  It didn’t look like tea. _And I shouldn’t care._ “Good morning, Meliodas.”

“Take me home.”

She studied  my teal and gold clothes, a variation of my daily attire. If I had to admit,  I didn’t mind them—there was a certain freedom of movement that made me feel more…secure. “That color suits you.” Blue eyes flicked to mine, mischief glimmering in them once more, though I couldn’t tell whether it was just another mask at this point. “Brings out your eyes.”

“Do you want me to say please? Is that it?”

“I want you  to talk to me like a _person_.” She took another sip of the contents of her glass, tilting her head back. “If you’re capable of that, of course. Start with ‘good morning’ and let’s see where it gets us.”

“Good morning.” I gave her a saccharine-sweet smile, widening my eyes innocently. “Now take me home.”

A faint smile. _Bitch_. “Are you ready to face the consequences  of your…rather abrupt departure?”

I stiffened. I hadn’t considered the wedding, hadn’t even _thought_ about it since Elizabeth had first said the word _War_. In the beginning, yes, but today…today I’d only thought of Zaneli, of wanting to see her, hold her, ask her about everything Elizabeth had claimed, about Erebus and Istar and the Illyrians. During   the past several days, I hadn’t shown any signs of the power Elizabeth believed I had, hadn’t _felt_ anything stirring beneath my skin since then—and thank the Cauldron for that. “It’s none of your business.”

She shrugged. “Of course, my apologies. You’ll just ignore it and sweep it under the rug along with everything else and go back to pretending it’s all fine and dandy.”

 “No one asked for your opinion, Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth?” She chuckled, low and soft. “That’s the most civil thing you’ve called me all week—next to _snake_ and _prick,_ I think.”

I bared my teeth at her. “Well, you did _kidnap me against my will.”_

“But just look at you, darling.” She rose to her feet, stalking toward me until she was close enough to touch me if she wished, still holding a half-full glass of amber liquid. “There’s color in your cheeks and you’ve got back a touch of the weight you lost, _plus_ you’re learning to read. Also, your mental shield is _stellar_ at this point. One might even say you needed this.”

“ _Please_ take me home.”

She shrugged again. “I’ll tell Diane you said good-bye.”

“I barely saw her all week.”  Just that first meeting when she’d called me a friend—then that conversation yesterday, when we hadn’t exchanged so much as a greeting. One conversation hardly garnered an emotional farewell (I caught myself quashing the guilt I felt at the thought she might have wanted to say good-bye—she was a member of a rival court, if not an enemy, and even if I’d enjoyed our brief chat, my loyalty had to be to Zaneli first).

“She was waiting for an invitation—she didn’t want to pester you. I wish she extended _me_ the same courtesy,” she added thoughtfully, frowning almost petulantly.

“No one told me.” I didn’t particularly care ( _liar,_ some small part of me whispered). No doubt she had better things to do, anyway.

“You didn’t ask. And why bother? Better to be miserable and alone, _obviously_. How silly of me to think otherwise.” She circled me, each step as sinuous and graceful as a panther’s. Her hair was definitely ruffled, as if she’d been running her hands through it before she’d plaited it. Or just flying for hours to whatever secret spot to meet her other _secret lieutenants_ for her _secret plans_ and I should probably _shut up_ and keep my shield up so she didn’t catch me thinking like a spoiled human child. “Have you thought about my offer?”

“I’ll let you know next month.” Because there was going to be a next month now, I knew. There was no way out of this—none that we could find in the span of a month.

She stopped a hand’s breadth away, her moon-pale face tight, blue eyes almost…desperate. “I told you once, and I’ll tell you again,” she said. “I am _not_ your enemy.”

I resisted the strange pull of the pleading in her eyes, lifting my chin. “And I told you once, so I’ll tell you again. You’re _Zaneli’s_ enemy. So I suppose that makes you mine.”

“Does it?”

“Free me from my bargain and let’s find out.”

The desperation, the _regret_ vanished from her gaze, eyes turning to swirling voids the color of midnight. “I can’t do that.”

 _Of fucking course._ “Can’t,” I snapped, “or won’t?”

She merely extended her hand, that catlike smirk settling back into place, once more wicked and regal and playing games I could never figure out. “Shall we go?”

I practically threw myself at it, latching onto her in my desperation to return home. Her fingers   were cool to the touch, long and strong despite their dainty appearance, callused from weapons I'd never seen her wield. Darkness gobbled us up as soon as her hand tightened around mine, and it    was instinct to cling to her as the world dissolved into pure shadow, falling out from beneath my       feet. Wind whipped around me, tearing at my clothes, and her arm was a warm, heavy weight across my back while we tumbled through realms,  Elizabeth cackling outright at my terror.

But  then solid ground—familiar flagstones—were under me, then blinding sunshine above in cerulean skies, greenery (more than I’d seen all _week)_ , little birds chirping—

I shoved away from her as the sweet scent of spring registered, new grass and roses, blinking at the brightness, at the massive oak hunched over us, a familiar wrought-silver bench tucked in its shade. I turned in place, drinking it all in, the sunshine and the warmth of being back where I belonged—and froze at the sight of an oak at the edge of the formal gardens—of _home_.

I made to bolt for the manor house, but Elizabeth trapped my wrist in her surprisingly strong grip. Her eyes flashed between me and the manor, shining white in the distance. “Good luck,” she crooned. “Tell dearest Zaneli I send my best~”

I met her gaze, gave a snarl that would make Zaneli proud. “Get your hand off me.”

She chuckled softly, letting go. “I’ll see you next month,” she purred, and before I could spit on her, she vanished.

* * *

 

I found Zaneli in her study, Jenna and two other sentries standing around the map-covered worktable. The walls—gods, I nearly forgotten about the presence of _walls—_ were covered with pushpins and claw-marks, much like the map room in Elizabeth’s private estate. I skidded to a halt in the doorway, heart beating wildly as my gaze landed on dark hair crowned with petals.

Jenna was the first to turn to where I hovered nervously in the doorway, falling silent mid-sentence. But then Zaneli’s head snapped up, her emerald eyes meeting mine, and she was bolting across the room, so fast that I hardly had time to draw breath before she was crushing me against her. I felt warmer than I’d been since the wedding, _happier_ —I was home, and I was by her side again.

 _I am not your enemy._ Elizabeth’s words echoed, but I pushed them away, murmuring her name as my throat burned, tears pricking at my eyes, and then—

Then she was holding me at arm’s length, scanning me from head to toe. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? What did she do to you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, noticing the exact  moment when she registered that I was robed in the fashion of the Night Court, her eyes widening with alarm at the not-quite-sheer fabric, the strip of bared skin visible from my midriff. “She didn’t touch me, Zaneli, no one did. It was—” _Nice,_ I almost said, but something stopped me in my tracks

She didn’t let go of me, though, gazing at me as though she could see fingerprints on my body, turning me around in her arms. Something sharp and impatient rose up in me despite everything and I tore out of her desperate grip. “I said no one touched me. Do you really think I’d lie for _her?”_ I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, stepping closer again. “Zan—Zaneli, I’m so sorry, I just—”

She slowly raised her eyes to mine, shining green depths glittering with tears. “You’re all right,” she breathed, before repeating it, again and again—like she could make it so just by saying it, erase all the tortures she’d thought I’d gone through by willing them out of existence.

My  heart cracked, melted in my chest, and I reached to cup her cheek. “Zaneli,” I murmured, and the whisper of it seemed to erase the acidity Elizabeth had spat her name with just moments before. Jenna and the other sentries, wisely, made their exit as quiet and inconspicuous as possible, my eyes following the movements of their bright-eyed leader. My friend caught my gaze as she left, giving me a mischievous wink.

“She can harm you in other ways,” Zaneli croaked, closing her eyes against my touch and snapping my attention back to her. At those words, my heart broke—because they were _true._ She knew of Elizabeth’s power, had probably felt those claws of moonlight and shadow seize her mind once; she’d probably been out of her mind with terror, wondering if I would come back as someone unrecognizable to her.

“I know—” gods, how I knew— “but I’m all right. I really am,” I whispered as gently as I could. And then noticed the study walls—the claw marks raked down them were deeper, newer than I’d thought, no more than a week old and scattered all over those map-covered walls. And the table they’d been using…that was new, the bookshelves as well. “You trashed the study.”

“I trashed half the house,” she said, leaning  forward to press her brow to mine. “She took you away, she _stole_ you—”

For some reason, the way she said _stole_ bothered me—as if I’d had no hand in the bargain, as if it was entirely Elizabeth’s choice. But it wasn’t, and as much as I didn’t like it (or _her)_ , I’d done it to save Zaneli, to save her people. That wasn’t stealing, it was…a price I had to pay for this peace. However temporary it might be. “And left me alone.”

Zaneli pulled back, growling. “Probably to get you to drop your guard; she would think it would make you more fun to _play with_.” Her voice dripped disgust. “You have no idea what games she plays, what she’s capable of doing—”

“I know,” I said, even as it tasted like ash on my tongue, the words feeling _wrong._ Elizabeth was a bitch and a snake and an arrogant, infuriating female in general, but she hadn’t been toying with me when she said war was coming.  “And the next time, I’ll be careful—”

Zaneli hissed, her grip on me tightening. “There won’t _be_ a next time.”

I blinked. “You found a way  out?” Or perhaps Ludociel had; he’d promised to check with his brother priests, to scour their libraries of magic for a solution that didn’t involve releasing me to _her._ If they had—

If they’d told me a week ago, I would’ve been elated. Now…now I was conflicted, caught between the desire to stay home and the strange hunger for that beautiful, wall-less palace, that feeling of freedom and the information I’d never gotten from Zaneli. Elizabeth was awful, but her honesty was refreshing, and (loathe though I was to admit it) fighting with her had been more entertaining than wandering the grounds surrounded by escorts.

“I’m not letting you go.”

Something that was like relief and disappointment both swept through me. “She said there were consequences for breaking a magical bargain.” My tattoo tingled as I spoke, the open eye visible through the gauzy turquoise fabric, seeming to wink at me.

“Damn the consequences.” But I heard it for the empty threat it was—and how much it destroyed her. That was who she was, _what_ she was: protector, defender. I couldn’t ask her to stop being that way—to stop worrying about me. It hurt her enough that there was nothing she could do to defend me from this bargain; I could wait to ask her about the war, about ties to Erebus and alliances.

I leaned into her, kissed her slowly, softly, trying to communicate everything I felt in a single touch. There was so much I wanted to ask her, but—later. “Let’s go upstairs,” I murmured onto her lips, and she slid her arms around me.

“I missed you,” she said between kisses. “I went out of my _mind_.” I let my eyes drift closed, her kisses like fresh air after a life spent in the airless dark. Those words were all I needed to hear. Until—

“I need information from you, Meliodas.”

I felt my heart drop, let out  a low hum of affirmation, but angled my head further. “Later.” Her body was so warm, so soft against mine, her scent so _familiar_ —

_Jasmine. Star-kissed night. Wings like velvet._

Zaneli gripped my waist, pressing her brow to my own. “No—now,” she insisted, pulling herself away from my touch, my kiss, from _me_. “While…” There was conflict in her eyes, and I thought I might win out—but she pulled back, ripping her mouth from mine. “While it’s all fresh in your mind.”

I froze, one hand tangled in her dark, rich hair, the other gripping the back of her silky green dress. “What?” _I don’t want to relive it, I just want to be with you—_ please _don’t make me relive it, just don’t—for once—_ please. Zaneli stepped back, shaking her head as if to clear the desire addling her senses. We hadn’t been apart for so long since Mael, and the first thing she wanted to do was to press me for information about the Night Court? “Zaneli, please.”

She raised a hand imperiously, silencing me in a second as she stalked to the door and summoned Jenna. In the few brief moments it took her lieutenant to reach the study, I tried to fix my rumpled appearance, erase the remaining traces of what had almost happened, tugging down my shirt and raking my fingers through locks that now reached my shoulders—not that the latter did much to my permanently messy hair. Zaneli reached out hesitantly, gave my shoulder an apologetic squeeze. “I’m sorry, Meliodas, but this is for our safety.”

I took in the shredded walls, the scuffed and chipped furniture. What nightmares had she suffered, waking and asleep, while I was away? What had it been like, to imagine me in her blood enemy’s hands, after seeing what Mael had done to me? After knowing what Elizabeth could do, and sending me into her clutches? “I know,” I murmured at last. “I know, Zaneli.” Or I was trying to know.

I’d just settled into the low-backed chair Zaneli pulled out for me when Jenna strode in, shutting the door behind her and leaning on her staff. “Glad to see you in one piece, Meliodas,” she greeted, claiming the seat beside me. “I could do without the Night Court attire, though.”

Zaneli gave  a low growl of agreement. I said nothing, settling my hands uncomfortably in my lap. I _liked_ these clothes; they were less restricting to the heavy tunics I usually wore here, the colors more flattering than the usual pale greens and pinks. Yet I understood—I really did—why it’d be an affront to them, the branding of their rival and enemy covering me.

Zaneli and Jenna exchanged glances, speaking without uttering a word in that way only people who had been partners  for centuries could do. Jenna inclined her head and leaned back in her chair—to listen, to observe. “We need you to tell us everything,” Zaneli said. “The layout of the Night Court, who you saw, what weapons and powers they bore, what Elizabeth did, who she spoke to, any and every detail you can recall.”

I stiffened despite myself. _Diane, the war room, Vervada and Risling…_ “I didn’t realize I was a spy.”

Jenna shifted in her seat, looking guilty, but Zaneli said, utterly unapologetic, “As much as I hate your bargain, you’ve been granted access into the Night Court, a place more of a mystery to us than any of the other courts. Outsiders are rarely allowed past the edge of the borders, even those on diplomatic missions, and those that come out usually do so in pieces. Those still capable of function…their memories come out altered, pieces of them missing.”

A chill slithered down my spine. “Why do you want to know? What are you going to do?”

“Knowing my enemy’s plans, allies, her lifestyle, is essential to keeping her at bay. As for what we’re going to do… That’s neither here nor there.” I heard Elizabeth’s voice in my head, whispering _Perhaps it’s time you insisted,_ but Zaneli cut me off before I could open my mouth to demand more information. Her green eyes pinned me. “Start with the layout of the court. Is it true it’s under a mountain?”

“This feels an awful  lot like an interrogation.”

Jenna sucked in a breath, but remained silent. Zaneli spread her hands on the desk, looking at me pleadingly. “We need to know these things, Meliodas. Or—or can you not remember?” Claws glinted at her knuckles, the miasma of her impending wrath rising at the thought of Elizabeth ripping through my memories suddenly swirling around the room, silencing my protests at the thought of facing that terrifying anger.

“I can remember everything,” I said quickly, before she could—I didn’t know what she’d do, but I was worried. “She didn’t damage my mind.” And before she could question me further, I began to speak of all that I had seen.

 _Because I trust you_ ,  Elizabeth had said. And maybe—maybe she _had_ scrambled my mind, even with the lessons in shielding, because describing the layout of her home, her court, the mountains around them, felt like bathing in oil and mud and choking down poison with every word. She _was_ my enemy, she was holding me to a bargain I’d made from pure desperation—

And she’d saved me when I asked. Even if I’d never admit it until the day I died.

I kept speaking, compelled by that burning look in Zaneli’s eyes, describing the war room in the tower. Zaneli grilled me on every position on the maps, asked me over and over whether I was _sure_ there’d been nothing in the Night Court until I nearly snapped at her. She didn’t give me a chance to ask about the war Elizabeth insisted Erebus was bringing, instead making me repeat every word Elizabeth had said and turn it inside and out looking for double meanings. It took some effort to interrupt her furious questions, to ask about the powers Elizabeth believed I now possessed…and about Erebus. I told the two of them about the conversation with Diane, about the massacre at Istar (which, according to Jenna, was one of the only known villages in Night Court territory), about the two people Elizabeth had mentioned—Gelda and King. Their faces tightened at the names, Jenna’s hands tightening on her staff, but they didn’t say whether they knew who they were or not. So I kept going, about the Illyrians, about how Elizabeth had hunted down and killed those who turned their allegiance over to Mael…and when I stopped, Zaneli was silent, Jenna practically vibrating with whatever words she was dying to blurt out.

 “Do you think I might have those abilities?” I asked quietly, forcing myself to hold her gaze. _Do you think I could fight? Become someone Britannia listens to?_

“Possibly,” Zaneli said with equal quiet. “And if it’s true…”

Jenna said at last, “It’s a power other High Ladies would kill for.” It was an effort not to fidget while her metal eye, the one her mother had left her with before she’d fled to Spring, whirred, as if detecting whatever power ran through my immortal blood. “My mother, for one, would not be pleased to learn a drop  of her power is  missing—or that Zaneli’s groom now has it. She’d do anything to make sure you _don’t_   possess it—including kill you. There are other High Ladies who would agree—in fact, I’m surprised Elizabeth didn’t take your life.”

That _thing_ beneath my skin began roiling, setting my blood aflame. “I’d never use it against anyone—”

“It’s not about using it against them, it’s about having an edge that the rest of us don’t,” Zaneli muttered. “The other High Ladies will regard it as having been stolen from them and will demand your death or banishment in return—"

I’d seen a flicker of _something_ in her eyes, something like annoyance and regret—as if she’d been hiding it from me, as if she’d been able to tell from the beginning. “Did you know?” I demanded, rising to my feet. Jenna wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Did you suspect—and you didn’t _tell_ me?” I didn’t bother hiding the outrage in my voice.

“I’d hoped it wasn’t true,” Zaneli said carefully. “And now that Elizabeth suspects, there’s no telling what she’ll do with the information, who she’ll sell it to—”

“She wants me to train.” I wasn’t stupid enough to mention  the mental shield training—not right now. Zaneli would think that she had brainwashed me under the guise of training or something. “Not get me killed—she thinks I can _help._ And I can, Zaneli, please, if you’d just let me.” _Let me in. Let me serve the Spring Court as you do._

“Absolutely not.” Zaneli’s grip tightened on the table, going white-knuckled. “It would draw too much attention to you, make the other High Ladies believe that we’re girding for war. This way, I can protect you.”

There had been a time when she could not, I knew, a time that haunted my nightmares as the greatest pain I’d ever felt, a time that still made me shake when I thought of it. When she had been vulnerable, and when she had watched  me be tortured  to death for refusing to lie and say I did not love her. And could do nothing to stop Mael from—

_Elizabeth roaring my name from the side of the crowd over and over as my neck was snapped, Zaneli tearing Mael to shreds as I solved the riddle that would free them all with my last breath, her hands cradling my dead body as my spirit clung to some strange bond, knowing that home was on the other end._

I would not  allow another Mael, not when I had breath in my lungs and blood in my veins. I would  not allow the King of Erebus to bring his beasts and minions here to hurt more people. To hurt the ones I loved, the ones I’d do anything to protect, or to bring down that wall to hurt countless others across it. “I could use my powers against Erebus.”

“That’s out of the question,” Zaneli said fiercely, “especially as there will be no war against Erebus.”

I remembered the way Elizabeth’s eyes had glazed over at the memory of the first War, of the bloodshed she so desperately wanted to avoid. “Elizabeth is certain it’s coming, and we’ll be hit hard since we’re closest to the wall.” I didn’t mention the ties to Erebus she insisted Zaneli had.

Jenna said drily, “And Elizabeth knows everything?”

A scowl tugged at my lips. “No, of course not—but… She seemed genuinely concerned. She thinks I can make a difference  in any upcoming conflict, like—like before.” _Become a weapon. Become vital._

Zaneli tilted her head, flexed her fingers to contain those deadly claws. “You’re skilled with a bow, but not as skilled as a trained soldier, and you have absolutely no training in any form of battle or weaponry or the like. Moreover, even if I started training you this instant, it would be a century before you could hold your own in this…war you _say_ is coming, let alone match a High Lady blow for blow.” She inhaled slowly, bowing her head. “So despite what _she_ thinks, Meliodas, I’m not putting you anywhere near a battlefield. Especially if it means revealing these powers of yours to our enemies—you’d be fighting monsters to the front, and beasts with the faces of Fae at your back.”

 “I don’t _care_ —”

“ _I_ care,” Zaneli snarled. Jenna whooshed out a breath, dragging a hand down the side of her face. “ _I_ care if you die, if you’re hurt,  if you will be in  danger  every moment for the rest of our lives. So there will be no training, and we’re going to keep this between the three of us, and the three of us alone.”

 “But Erebus—”

Jenna intervened calmly, “I  already  have my sources looking into it.” I gave her a beseeching look—she agreed with me, on some level, I could tell, if I could just get her not to bow to Zaneli’s wishes this once—

Jenna sighed a bit and said to Zaneli, “If I perhaps trained him in secret—he’s going to be your consort, your mate once the bond kicks in. Even if he’s kept away from all danger, there will be risks, dangers, he’s going to have to learn to defend himself against an immortal—"

“Too many risks, too many variables. He knows enough, anyways,” Zaneli countered. “And there will be no conflict with Erebus, no war.”

I snapped, “That’s wishful thinking and you damn well know it.” _Know it better than I do, seeing how you have_ ties _to them._

Jenna muttered something   that sounded like a plea to the Cauldron. I felt like joining her as Zaneli stiffened, those wicked claws sliding from her fingers slowly, then bit out, “Describe her map room for me again.” End of discussion. No room for debate. A dismissal of someone she told me she loved more than anything.

We  stared each other down for a moment, and my stomach twisted  further. I dropped my gaze first, gazing down at my hands—one sunkissed from that week of no walls and the winter sun, the other with swirling designs of shadow covering it, marking me.

Zaneli was the High Lady— _my_ High Lady, stewardess and queen of the Spring Court. She was the protector of her people, a permanent shield around them—around me. And if keeping me safe would give her people hope, would give them the ability to rebuild after the occupation…then wasn’t it my duty to bow to her on this?

I could do it.

Except I heard Elizabeth’s voice again, low and furious. _You are no one’s subject._ Maybe Elizabeth _had_ altered my mind, shields or no.

The thought alone was enough for me to begin feeding Zaneli details once more, ignoring the slimy feeling of _betrayal_ all the while.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to be the same person everyone expects when who you are keeps changing, Meliodas finds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyy, next chapter of the burst publishing! Please leave a review and kudos if you liked it! It's like fuel for me (I neeeeeeeeeeeeed it)

I had all of one day with Zaneli—just twenty-four hours, every one of them sunlit and perfect, spent wandering the gardens and talking and laughing before we enjoyed a quiet, private dinner, just the two of us—before she was called back to the border. She didn’t tell me where, or why—just that I was to stay within the grounds and that I’d have sentries guarding me the until she returned.

So I’d spent the week alone, waking up and bolting to the bathroom to retch into the toilet, muffling my screams and sobs as nightmares struck with pillows and blankets and a thousand tiny, unhelpful comforts that did nothing to banish the terror of walls closing in. Ludociel either didn’t know about the massacre of his brothers in the north or was avoiding the topic those few times I saw him—not that I could blame him, really, the idea of losing someone else I loved was earth-shattering in itself. I didn’t press him for information when he visited for similar reasons; I absolutely hated being pushed into talking about the things that plagued me, so I certainly wasn’t going to bother him about the same. Instead, the hours he visited were spent visiting courtiers and helping to select suitable fashions for the Tithe.

The Tithe, Jenna had explained to me before the wedding debacle, was an ancient tribute in which all members of the Spring Court brought the High Lady a gift of some sort, some form of wealth that acted as a tax that supported the realm and the queen who led it. When I’d asked her what to anticipate, though, she’d said not to worry, that Zaneli would handle everything. I should watch from her side and observe so that I could involve myself more with the next Tithe. It was a simple task—and a relief, knowing not all eyes would be fixed on me today, that I wouldn’t have to talk.

But it was an effort not to look at the eye tattooed on my hand, the swirling designs surrounding it, and remember what Elizabeth had snarled at me, about being _coddled_ , about making myself _heard. Making_ them listen.

Zaneli had only arrived late last night, just to oversee today’s Tithe. I wrestled with the resentment I felt, with the guilt I felt for being resentful at all. She had so much on her shoulders, pressing down on her—that much, at least, was clear despite my lack of knowledge about her duties beyond what Ludociel told me. If she had to stay away to keep us, to keep the Spring Court safe, then so be it.

I was seated beside Zaneli’s throne atop a dais in the manor house’s main hall, the white marble and gold glinting blindingly in the sunlight. Every Fae that came up to us eventually turned toward me, gave me their gratitude, their tears of joy and their blessings for what I’d done, and I kept that small, gentle smile on my face. Fixed the mask in place and wished that I could be like Zaneli, accept their love graciously and not feel ashamed and uncomfortable and unworthy. Ludociel was stationed near the doors in his usual pale gold hooded robe, offering comfort to those who fell apart in my presence, vowing that good had triumphed over evil, that Britannia was safe, and I ignored Elizabeth’s voice whispering _war is coming, Meliodas._

After twenty minutes, I was openly fidgeting with my tunic’s hem and sleeves, unable to keep up the benevolent-former-savior façade. After four hours, I wasn’t listening to a single word they said, practically dozing off in my seat. But they just kept coming, emissaries representing every town and people within the many regions of the Spring Court, bearing their tribute in gold or jewels, livestock and produce and clothing. The item itself didn’t seem to matter, so long as it equated to what they owed. Jenna stood at the foot of the dais, tallying the treasures of everyone who entered what she called the “receiving room”.

 _Receiving room,_ ha. It was a throne room, plain and simple, everything centering around the dais where Zaneli sat, ramrod straight and regal. I didn’t blame her for trying to find another term, though. We’d all spent too much time in a throne—one where I hadn’t been on the dais, but kneeling before a monster who held the one I loved like a trophy.

I stirred slightly as Zaneli glanced in my direction, trying to make it appear as though I’d been paying attention this entire time. She looked caught between annoyance and amusement, and I gave her a small smile as her eyes crinkled slightly at the corners before we both turned back to the newest faerie, a slender, gray-skinned female who knelt before the golden dais. She wore no clothes, her long, dark hair shimmering like oil as it spilled over her shoulder, round eyes of pure black, like a stagnant pond, blinking up at Zaneli.

Jenna’s face tightened—whether with concern or disapproval, I couldn’t tell—but she didn’t speak as the lesser faerie lowered her angular, inhuman face and clasped webbed, spider-like fingers together, the light glittering over her iridescent skin. “On behalf of the water-wraiths, I greet thee, O High Lady,” she breathed, her voice like a snake slithering over the ground, teeth as sharp as daggers revealed when her lips parted.

I’d glimpsed her kind before, swimming in the pond just past the edge of the manor’s grounds. Five of them, who lived among the reeds and lilypads and never gave me a chance to see more than their glimmering heads. Seeing them up close was downright terrifying, and I thanked the Cauldron for a moment that I’d never gone swimming in that pond. I’d heard horror stories as a child about children back before the War that were dragged beneath the surface by creatures like them and drowned before they could scream, and Cursebreaker or no, the same would likely have happened to me.

“Welcome,” Zaneli said, her voice light and warm and sweet. It had been five hours of this, of _receiving_ , but she looked as fresh and lovely as she had this morning, contrasting the wild mess I knew I must look like, tired out and avoiding the stares that inevitably fell on me. The water-wraith stepped closer, to us, to me, and Jenna took a step between us that was not nearly as casual as she seemed to think.

They didn’t believe there was going to be a war, but the High Lady’s lieutenant was set on me as a guard against a water-wraith who clearly had no intention of attack. My lips twitched, started to pull back into an irritated snarl before I caught myself and settled back in my chair. This conversation, it seemed, would not proceed as all the others had.

“Please, High Lady,” the faerie was pleading, kneeling before Zaneli, her head bowed so low that her inky hair spilled across the marble and gold. “There are no fish left in the lake; we are starving, we cannot pay—”

“You must.” Zaneli was unrelenting, her face thrown in sharp relief by her uncaring expression. The crown atop her head gleamed in the afternoon light, a concoction of rose-gold and emeralds and sapphires and amethysts. One of five belonging to her bloodline, her family, a drop in a trove of wealth. Surely we could go without a basket of fish, without _any_ of what was brought to us for the Tithe. I watched, horrified, as the faerie bared her palms in pleading and was interrupted. “There are no exceptions. I will give you three days to pay what you owe…or offer double next Tithe.”

It took everything in me to keep from gaping at the immovable face or rising to my feet in protest at the pitiless words. The shock and anger in me only grew as Ludociel gave a nod of approval to no one in particular. The water-wraith had nothing to eat, and we feasted every night—how could she expect her to give _her_ food?

“ _Please_ ,” she begged through her pointed teeth, no longer quite so hideous and frightening to me. She was trembling, those pitch-black eyes wide. “There is nothing left in the lake, my lady.”

Zaneli’s eyes flashed. “You have three days—”

“But we have _nothing!”_

 _We have nothing._ Those words struck my heart even as Zaneli’s expression turned merciless, almost _cruel._ “Do _not_ interrupt me.”

 _How dare you,_ I wanted to snarl. She had no idea what poverty was like, had lived a life of wealth—hardship, yes, but _wealth._ My family had lost everything when I was merely six, and I’d been forced to learn to hunt simply so we’d actually _survive_ the winter. We’d lived in a _hovel,_ and had some lord or lady come asking for money or food, we’d have been died long ago. _I am not merciless. I am not empty. I am not_ you.

I watched the water-wraith apologize and slink off at Zaneli’s dismissal, the next Fae trotting up, and twisted to her. “We don’t need a basket of fish. Why make her struggle worse?”

Her eyes flicked to where Ludociel had stepped aside to let her pass, a hand on the jewels of his belt, as if the poor, starving faerie might snatch them off of her to use as payment. She frowned sorrowfully—but she wasn’t pitying the water-wraith, I realized. She was pitying _me,_ for not understanding something that was childishly simple in her eyes, and that _thing_ in my blood reared its head again, snarling. “I can’t make exceptions, Meliodas. If I let her transgression pass, the next will think they can get away with it, and the next and the next, and soon the Tithe itself falls apart—and if a tradition begun by the first High Lady of Spring could fall, what else might follow?”

“Sounds like a lot of hypothetical justifications for letting someone starve and forcing them to pay _us_ anyways.” I clutched the arms of my chair, a small, humble seat of carved oak next to her grand throne of carved roses and blackthorns. “And we don’t need any of this. Nets woven of gold, jars of the finest honey—why leave her to starve? Three days won’t make a difference, and it’ll just make her debt worse and worse. Why not help her replenish the pond?” I’d spent enough years with an empty belly watching my brothers suffer not to budge on this, to want to stand up and throw something and _scream_ at the unfairness of it all.

Her eyes softened, as though she’d read every single thought through my expression, but she simply said: “This is the way it is. It’s the way my mother did it, and the way my daughter shall.” She squeezed my hand gently. “Someday.”

She sounded so, so sure of this _someday_ —sure we’d get married, sure there would be no war, that I’d become less of a burden and be rid of our shadows and accept _the way things are._ But I didn’t _want_ to lie down and let someone starve—not when I’d been in the same position too many times. To accept defeat again, as I had so many times before. “We could still help her, find a way to keep the pond stocked. Surely it wouldn’t take that much for someone of your power.”

Those warm eyes narrowed, hardened— “We have enough to deal with as it is.” _How would I know? You haven’t told me anything!_ “Giving handouts won’t help anyone in the long run.”

I opened my mouth,  but shut it with an audible click, struggling to keep the raw _anger_ at her refusal to understand from exploding outwards. Now wasn’t the time for this argument, not when I could actually _do_ something about it. And I _would_ —no more sitting still and looking pretty like Ludociel and Jenna and Zaneli asked, not if there were those who needed what I could give. _Become vital._

I tugged my hand free of hers as she motioned for the next emissary, a delicate-looking woman with green skin and pointed ears, to come forward, rising to my feet. “I need some fresh air,” I said brusquely, marching off before Zaneli could speak. The trio of sentries she’d set on me traced my every footstep, but I managed to ignore both them and the shocked gazes and whispers coming from every faerie in the line. Ludociel tried to catch me as I stormed by, and I could sense his burning gaze on my back as I breezed past without a word or a backwards glance.

I swept clear of the front doors and stalked past the gathered line snaking down the stone-paved main drive leading up to the manor’s entrance, a line that still continued all the way through to the forests. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds remaining, their bodies all meshing together in that formal line, all bearing gifts, but I managed to catch a glimpse of the wraith. She was retreating back around the corner of the manor house, toward the pond just beyond the edge of the grounds. Her shoulders shook, spindly hands wiping at her eyes as she trudged back to her home, humiliated and hopeless—a feeling I knew too well to want anyone else to suffer through it.

 “Excuse me,” I called, catching up to her, the trio of sentries on my trail keeping a respectful distance behind. I didn’t spare them a glance, even though I knew they’d report right to Zaneli when I’d finished. She’d have found out one way or another anyways—best to get her anger at being disobeyed over with.

The water-wraith paused at the edge of the house, whirling with unnatural smoothness before falling impossibly still, sizing me up warily. I avoided the   urge to  take a step back as those unearthly black eyes devoured me whole. Nearing until they were just a few paces away, the guards monitored us with hands on their blades.

Her nose was little more than two snakelike slits, delicate gills flaring beneath her ears as recognition flashed in her black eyes. She inclined her head slightly. Not a full bow—because I held no title, was no one to the court despite Zaneli’s love for me, but recognition that I was the High Lady’s plaything. _Future consort,_ I corrected myself weakly. “Yes?” she hissed, her pike’s teeth gleaming.

“How much is your Tithe?” There had to be some way I could repay it, with all the jewels and riches I was bedecked in, the riches I had access to. My heart beat rapidly as I beheld the webbed fingers and razor-sharp teeth. Zaneli had once told me that the water-wraiths ate anything and were forever hungry. And if there were no fish left… _Don’t think about that, do_ not _think about that at_ all. “How much gold does she want—what is your fish worth in gold?”

“Far  more than you have in your pocket.”

I bit the snarky retort that immediately rose to the surface at those cold, irritated words. _She’s humiliated and hungry and angry. Of course she’s going to lash out._ “Then here,” I said, unfastening a ruby-studded gold cuff from my wrist, one Ludociel had told me better suited my complexion more than the silver I’d almost worn, the one I’d preferred, if I were honest—thought his refusal might have been more based on the fact that the silver and sapphires mimicked Elizabeth’s coloring. I offered it to her. “Take this.” Before she could grasp it, I ripped the diamond teardrops from my delicately pointed ears, sliding rings and the matching cuff on my other wrist off as well. “And these.” I extended my hands, glittering with gold and jewels. “Give her what you owe, then buy yourself and your sisters some food,” I ordered, swallowing hard as her dark eyes widened with something like shock. The nearby village had a small market every week—a fledgling gathering of vendors for now, but it was one I’d hoped to help thrive. One that, if I shared my ideas for it, for the reconstruction of the Spring Court and its people, might actually become useful, become important, and be able to help those like the wraith, like I had been and, in some ways, still was—the poor, the hungry, the starving and the broken. If Zaneli allowed it, if I dared to fight it.

Somehow.

“And what payment do you require?”

Her words, the wariness and surprise in them audible even though her strange, slithering voice, pulled me out of my musings. “Nothing.    It’s—it’s not a bargain, just a gift. Just take it.” I extended my hands further. “Please.”

She   frowned at the jewels draping from my hands. “You desire _nothing_ in return?” There was incredulity there, and I caught myself wondering for the first time if Zaneli was generous and kind as I’d always believed, gentle and benevolent despite her stern, protective nature. I wondered how many Fae had died as a result of the no handouts, no help policy—wondered how I was going to change that if she refused to listen.

“Nothing.” The faeries in the line were now staring unabashedly, their gazes sending prickles up my spine. I forced myself to ignore them, focusing on the water-wraith. “Please, just take them.” _I know what it is to have starving family. To be insatiable and unable to protect them._

With a final appraising look, her cold, clammy fingers brushed mine, gathering up the jewelry. It glimmered like light on water in her webbed hands.

“Thank you,” she said, and bowed deeply this time, deeper than she’d bowed even to Zaneli. “I will not forget this kindness.” Her voice slithered over the words, and I fought back a shiver again as   her black eyes threatened to swallow me whole. _She will not harm me. I have earned her loyalty, and she will not harm me_. “Nor will any of my sisters.”

She stalked back toward the  manor with something almost like a bounce in her step. The faces of my three sentries were tight with reproach, and I knew they were bound to report to Zaneli.

I didn’t care.

* * *

 

I took my usual place at the dinner table, heaping food onto my plate as Zaneli stared me down from the head of the table, green eyes burning. I ignored the savage, angry light in them, ignored the way Jenna’s eyes bounced worriedly from me to her and back again. _What I did was right,_ I thought, and secured myself in that knowledge, digging into my meal and eating with almost insolent gusto. Maybe Elizabeth was rubbing off on me, but I felt strangely… _proud,_ of what I’d done, of my disobedience.

Still, after ten minutes of heavy, tension-filled silence, I set down my  fork with a sigh and a roll of my eyes, leaning forward and resting my chin in my palm—this time a trick I’d picked up while watching Diane at that breakfast. I was _angry,_ I realized, furious with Zaneli, and though I knew she would only grow angrier, I kept my voice light and innocent as I asked, “What is it?”

Zaneli didn’t hesitate. “You know what it is.” I didn’t reply, simply taking another bite of the food on my plate and chewing slowly. If we were going to hash this out now, she would start the fight, not me. I was secure in the knowledge that I’d done the right thing, and I wasn’t about to bow down now. Not on this.

Sure enough, she pressed, “You gave that water-wraith your jewelry. Jewelry _I_ gave you.”

“I don’t see why it matters, seeing as our house is full of jewelry that you and I never wear.” I tapped my fork lightly against the table. “Seeing as our cutlery itself is made of gold and your people are _starving_ in their own homes.”

Jenna took a deep breath that sounded a lot like: _“Here we go.”_

I ignored her, taking a long sip of wine from the crystal-and-silver-lined glass. “Why _shouldn’t_ I give them to her? It’s all a drop in the bucket for your treasury. Those things don’t mean anything to me anyways, there’s no sentimental value to them—to any of this.” I slammed down the glass with more force than necessary, my hackles rising as her lip curled with what looked like disgust. “I’ve never so much as worn the same piece of jewelry twice! Who cares about any of it?”

Zaneli’s lips thinned to a pale line. “Because you _undermine_ the laws of this court when you behave like that. Because this is how things are _done_ here, and when you hand that gluttonous faerie the money she needs, it makes me—it makes this entire court—look _weak_.”

Righteous fury lashed through me, sending that _thing_ in my blood pulsing wildly. “Don’t you dare—don’t you _dare_ talk to me like that.” Her claws snapped out, wicked, curving lengths cutting through the wood of the table like it was butter, but I was not cowed, not intimidated—not this time. _You are no one’s subject._ “You might be High Lady, you might have suffered and I know you’ve faced terrors I cannot fathom, but _you—_ you have no idea what it was like for me, even after all this time. You have no idea what it’s like to _starve,_ to come home to the people you desperately need to protect and tell them you have nothing, to watch them go hungry. And then you go and call her _gluttonous—_ when we’re the ones sitting in front of a _feast_ every. Single. Night.” I planted my hands on the table, leaned forward with a snarl, my chest heaving as that _power_ wove through me hungrily. “Call her a glutton all you like, but I have siblings as well. And maybe she’ll go and spend it frivolously, maybe she was lying and didn’t need it, but I’m not going to let them _starve_ because of some archaic rule your ancestors set up!” I was shouting by the end of it, and I forced myself not to jump to my feet, exhaling slowly as I pulled up the scraps of that arrogant façade I’d learned from watching Elizabeth.

Jenna cleared her throat, drawing both our gazes to her. “He meant no harm, Zan.”

 “I know he meant no harm,” she snapped.

Jenna held her gaze with all the calmness of a female used to reining people in. “Worse things have happened, worse things _can_ happen. Just relax.”

Zaneli’s emerald eyes were feral as she snarled at Jenna, “Did I _ask_ for your opinion?”

Those words, the _look_ she gave Jenna—her _best friend,_ her constant ally—and the way Jenna lowered her head submissively made fury flare in my very bones. My temper was a burning river in my veins, screaming for justice, for us to throw back the one who thought to chain us, and it took everything in me not to explode—to look to Jenna instead.

  _Look up_ , I silently beseeched her, reaching out as though I could pour my thoughts into her mind. _Push back, fight it_. _She’s wrong, and we’re right_. Jenna’s jaw tightened, the look in her eyes hardening to flint. That force thrummed in me again, seeping out, spearing for Jenna. _Do_ not _back down_ —

Then I was _gone_.

Still there, still seeing through my eyes, but also half looking through another angle in the room, another person’s vantage point, seeing it as if gazing through my peripheral—

Thoughts slammed into me, images and _memories_ of leaves like fire and a man with sorrowful eyes in a land I’d never seen, a pattern  of thinking and feeling that was ancient, and clever and spunky, daring and _sad_ , so endlessly sad and guilt ridden, torn between her friend and her High Lady, between right and obedience, hopeless, as if caught in a whirlpool with no way out and struggling not to get pulled under.

As quickly as I’d snapped into that strange consciousness, I was out, blinking in shock, no more than a heartbeat passing as I gaped at Jenna. A grave, terrible understanding filled me as I closed my mouth, hands digging into the wood of the table. _Her head_. I had been _inside_ her head, had slid through her mental walls as easily as breathing, as easily as _she_ did—

I stood, tossing my napkin ( _finest linen,_ the kind that would’ve bought me and my brothers enough food to last _months)_ on the table with hands that were unnervingly steady. I knew who _that_ gift had come from, whose spark of life had given me the ability to slip into minds (and tear them apart?) like all the walls in the world simply did not exist. My dinner rose in my throat, but I willed it down, turning toward the grand staircase that led to the upper floor.

“We’re not finished with this meal.” Zaneli’s voice, usually light and sweet, was a low, vicious growl. Normally I would’ve been intimidated, would’ve hurried away without a word, but anger and disgust were still burning high in me.

“Oh, get over yourself,” I snapped out, and left, stalking up the stairs to my room. I could have sworn I caught sight of two burned handprints on the wood, peeking out from beneath my napkin. I prayed neither of them noticed, that Jenna didn’t realize what I’d done to her.

And that Elizabeth didn’t find out what she’d given me through the shields.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read and review! Next chapter should be up in minutes!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's amazing, sometimes, how fast things can go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third stage of burst publishing! A few more to go before all of Part One: House of Roses is done, and all of these should be, as Elizabeth would say, _interesting _. Enjoy, and please leave kudos or a review!__

I spent the rest of the evening pacing back and forth in my room, agonizing over the handprints scorched into the table. Maybe I’d been seeing things when I spotted those burns—maybe they’d been there before and I just hadn’t noticed them, the result of some argument from years and years ago. Maybe I hadn’t slipped into Jenna’s mind, delved into her identity like it was some idyllic lake and pushed her to do my bidding. The excuses were ridiculous, I knew, but it was easier than admitting that Elizabeth was right, and that Zaneli’s insistence that I ignore my powers might be the death of us all if I really lost my temper.

Cauldron, that was terrifying to think of—me, being the death of anything in this state. _Not remotely likely._

Derieri came to my chambers to help me get ready for bed, just as she always did, despite my protests that I could do it myself at this point. The lion-like faerie sat me down in front of the vanity, twirling the heavy silver-backed brush between two claws before attacking my hair with it—a futile task, but it brought a mildly amused smile to my face. My hair, long enough now to tie back (I’d have to ask Jenna or Zaneli for a hair tie sometime) was nearly as unruly as her own amber mane, but I let her go to town on it, making a gruesome face at myself in the mirror. The bags beneath my eyes seemed to be a permanent addition now, my face pale and sickly-looking in the light. Even my lips seemed pale, little scars littering the skin where I’d bitten them, and I tilted my head back with a huff.

“Ya gave yer riches to a water-wraith.” Derieri’s musings were surprisingly calm and curious, and I met her eyes in the mirror. Her tawny fur was gilded to gold in the half-light, amber eyes glittering curiously before she focused back on my hair. “Slippery things, the wraiths. They’ve got few allies here.” It wasn’t an admonishment, wasn’t reproachful—was a question, carefully framed as a statement.

“She said they were starving.” My own gaze burned back at me in the mirror—brilliant green, for once not as dull as river stones but bright as fire, burning with _something._ “No one would help her, so I did.”

Derieri hummed, her voice a low, rumbling growl as she coaxed out a tangle. “Yer right—they wouldn’t a’ helped her. None woulda dared, ‘specially not with their tendency t’ drag victims to their deaths ‘cause that insatiable appetite they’re cursed with. Ya surprised every Fae out there when ya went against the Lady like that, especially since yer jewels won’t last her a week.”

“It was worth it.” If I could prevent the hunger of a family for even one day, I’d consider that a greater feat than destroying Mael, the only kind of redemption I could have for the things I’d done to survive.

Her claws settled heavily on my shoulder, amber eyes bright. “Yer damn right it was,” she said gruffly, combing her fingers back through my hair again. “As long as she lives, she will never forget it—and they’ll never forget what you did, that there’s someone willing to give up his own belongings fer someone he doesn’t know. Too many of us have tasted nothin’ but dust and disappointment these past fifty years. Zaneli has their loyalty, but yer gaining their hearts now. Don’t think word o’ it won’t spread.”

_That's what I'm worried about._

* * *

 

It was midnight when I gave up on her coming to me, when I left the enclosed quiet of my room and padded through the heavy darkness of the corridors. I knew where she would’ve gone in her anger and confusion, though it took me some time to find it in the dark, knew where she would be hiding out. It didn’t stop me from checking her private chambers before going to the study, though—if there was anything today had proved, it was that I didn’t know her quite so well as I thought.

But I still loved her. Still wanted her approval, wanted her to listen to me, wanted the balm of her smile and the light in her eyes to shine upon me. So I couldn’t give up on her—that was what love was, wasn’t it?

She was alone when I entered her study, a wooden box with a fat purple bow sitting on the small table between the twin armchairs. She was perched on the edge of one chair, her head in her hands, raising it only when I entered the room. “I was just about to come up,” she murmured, giving me a quick once-over, checking to see that all was well. It wasn’t, wouldn’t be until this terror and tension pounding at me vanished, but I could pretend—for her sake. “You ought to be asleep.”

I shut the door behind me, gave her a small smile, unwilling to give her the truth—that I _couldn’t_ sleep, not with the vicious words of our argument ringing in my ears. I would never apologize for it, never consider what I’d done _wrong,_ but I’d provoked her anger because of my own temper and things seemed to be going even further downhill. “So should you,” I said tentatively, testing the boundaries of the shaky peace between us. When she didn’t snap at me, I crossed the room to lean against the armchair, my gaze falling to the box. “You work too hard.”

That got a soft, sorrowful chuckle. “Why do you think I had so little interest in becoming High Lady?” She rose from her seat slowly and made her way over to me, standing on tiptoe to kiss my brow and then the tip of my nose. I smiled despite myself as she kissed my mouth, chuckling softly as she muttered, “So much paperwork. So little time for anything…worthwhile.” She pressed the mouth to the bare spot between my neck and shoulder, sending sparks down my spine as she slowly pressed kisses up my neck. “I’m sorry, Meliodas.”

I took her hand, gave it a hesitant, gentle squeeze. “Zaneli…” There was so much I wanted to say, _needed_ to say to her.

“I shouldn’t have said those things.” She kissed me again, whispering the words onto my skin. “To you or to Jenna. I was angry and let it cloud my judgment—I meant none of it. And you were right.”

Surprise flickered through me at that, but I hid it, wrapped my arms around her. “I know,” I murmured, earning a huff of laughter. “Not—about me being right, I mean. But about you not meaning them.” Though I _had_ been right, and I hadn’t known whether she meant them or not until right now. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.” _And for nothing else._

“You had every right,” she said softly, though technically, as a High Fae with no rank, I didn’t. “I was wrong.”

“Mmm.” What she’d said about making exceptions and other faeries demanding the same treatment was true, and maybe what I’d done could be viewed as undermining her, but…I searched for that spark of regret that had always come whenever I fought with her before and found nothing. “It’s not your fault you didn’t understand.”

She pressed her forehead to mine, and I watched those dark lashes fall as her eyes drifted closed. “I didn’t want to, though—didn’t want to think about you starving, or that any of my court might still be in shambles after all we’ve been doing to rebuild.”

 _Denial._ I could almost hear Elizabeth purring some snarky comment to that in my mind, but I pushed thoughts of her away—she didn’t _matter,_ certainly not now—and pulled back to tilt my head toward the present waiting on the side table, willing to let this be the last of our argument. “For you?”

She nipped at my ear teasingly. “Mm…for you, from me.” Ah. An apology, then.

Feeling lighter, warmer than I had throughout this entire week, I pulled the ribbon loose, trailing my fingers over the pale birch box. It was about two feet high, perhaps three wide, with an iron handle engraved with a pattern of thorns. Definitely not clothes or cuffs or more jewelry, but… _Please don’t be a crown,_ I thought with sudden terror. I couldn’t handle so much as a _wedding,_ a crown— _like Mael wore like I was a king, a hero, a prince, like I deserved that honor, that burden, that blessing and curse twined together—_ would send me falling apart in seconds.

Though, when I paused to think about it, a crown or diadem or circlet would be in something less rustic, especially with Zaneli’s flair for beautiful things. My brow furrowed as I unlatched the gold fastenings and flipped open the broad lid—and paled.

It was _worse_ than a crown. I hadn’t thought it possible.

The box had neat compartments built into it, sleeves and holders filled with a hundred different-sized brushes, dozens of brilliant paints, charcoals and sheets of paper and one full canvas. I stared at it, paralyzed—I had loved painting, once, had poured my heart and soul into it every chance I got, even when we were starving, had painted flowers on a table in our little hovel when Estarossa traded some of the meat I’d hunted for a small set of paints with red, blue, and yellow, had covered his drawer in our shared dresser with flowers and birds, Zeldris’s with flames, and mine with the darkness and brilliance of the night sky. All I had wanted to do was paint, and when Zaneli offered me a small room as a studio back when I was human, I’d been the happiest I could recall being.

But that was before Under-the-Mountain. That was before I looked at the bottle of red paint and saw a vial of blood from the Summer Court faerie I’d slaughtered, before I looked at the blue and saw the stunning, crystal-clear eyes of the Winter Court female—before those three months, those three trials had killed that part of me that felt safe enough to create, like I deserved to create.

“I thought you might want to take it around the grounds with you instead of lugging around those bags like you used to.” I chanced a look in Zaneli’s direction—her face was alight with joy, expecting me to feel the same. I forced my lips up into a tremulous smile, even as my heart sank. _That’s why she thought I stopped painting? Because it was too much to carry?_

The wood of each brush was pale, like a bone picked clean, the brushes soft as feathers plucked from a bird. I felt like a vulture, a carrion crow, a filthy creature that didn’t deserve to pick one up again. I felt sick just looking at it. Still, I tried to force some brightness into my eyes, my face—for her.

“You don’t like it.” Her voice was soft, disappointed. “I thought…thought maybe if you started painting again…”

She didn’t finish, and I looked down at the box again before closing it carefully, flipping the latch shut. “It’s wonderful,” I said softly, and it was—it really was. I wanted more than anything to be elated, to be able to look down at that box and feel excitement, that spark of creativity flying high.

I didn’t.

Zaneli ran her hands through her hair. “I thought it might—”

“Help?” My hands hovered uncertainly over the latch, unsure of whether I should flip it open again or not. “It—I—like the paperwork helps you?” _Did it? Are you even addressing it?_ I chanced a look at her eyes, forced myself not to flinch as rage flashed in them.

“We’re not talking about me. We’re talking—about _you_ , Meliodas.”

No, we were never talking about her, about this sickening, poisonous cage she was weaving around me in an attempt to keep me safe, how every attempt at protection resulted in stifling me further. I studied the box again, resting my hand on it. “Will I even be allowed to paint where I wish, or will there be an escort too?” If she said yes, if there were more sentries, more eyes on me, tracking me, jailing me—

Silence.

I would be guarded, then—trapped.

Uncontrollable shudders ran through my body, my hands shaking, but I forced out the words that I’d been wanting to say for weeks. “Zaneli—Zaneli, please, I can’t…there’s no way I can live my life like that, with guards around me constantly. I can’t handle that…” _Empty of air, empty of feeling, walls closing in and_ choking me. “That suffocation, please, Zaneli, just let me help you—let me work with you.”

Jade-green eyes snapped and flared with anger as she rasped out, “You’ve given enough.”

 _Not enough, never enough to make up for what I’ve done, what I can never undo._ “I know,” I said instead, facing her, meeting her stare—no glamour over her, not now, just the full power of the High Lady of the Spring Court bearing down on me. “I’m not human now, I’m harder to kill, faster, stronger—” _Like a High Lord,_ Elizabeth had said. Only Zaneli said there was no such thing.

“My family, my sisters, my _mother_ was faster and stronger than you. And they were murdered in an instant by the mother of the same female who’s putting these thoughts in your head.”

I wanted to scream with frustration, wanted to break down and cry. _“No one_ is putting these thoughts in my head but you, setting those sentries on me all the time. If you need someone who can—who can bow constantly, who can handle those constant eyes, then say so. Just— _marry someone who can put up with this.”_

She blinked once, twice, with terrifying slowness. And then, with a horrible kind of softness, she said, “Do you not want to marry me, then?”

I forced myself not to look at the ring she’d placed on my finger, the glittering emerald that would await me if I glanced down at my hand, a band of the finest gold twined around it like her mark, claiming me as _hers._ Under-the-Mountain had once seemed to fade when I looked at it, but now—now it felt like _thorns_ were digging into my finger. “Of course I do.” _But I don’t, I can’t, not like this._ “Zaneli, you…” The words died in my throat, leaving me trembling as the walls closed in on me, stealing the air from my lungs, reminding me of the quiet and the guards and the stares, of what I’d seen at the Tithe, the cruel, cold High Lady I’d glimpsed. “I’m—I’m drowning,” I choked out. “Zaneli, I’m _drowning._ And the more you do this, the more guards, the more rules, the more silence… You might as well be shoving my head under the water.”

There was nothing— _nothing_ in those cold eyes, that icy, beautiful face suddenly empty of light and love and everything I knew and trusted. But _something_ rumbled throughout the room, vicious and angry and displeased, and then _lunged_ at me—

I cried out, my arms instinctively flying up to cover my head as her raw, untamed power exploded throughout the room. Glass shattered, the furniture turning to splinters in face of her strength as it rushed at me, straight for the throat, for the kill.

And that painting set—

It exploded into dust and glass and wood.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love is blind, love is painful--all of these have been said before. Meliodas wonders how much pain he can take, how much he can blind himself for the sake of her love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, and the downward spiral begins. Part four of my burst publishing! Please read and review!

One moment, the study was immaculate—recovering from when Zaneli had destroyed it after the wedding, but pristine and perfect and whole. The next, it looked like a battle had been fought within it, leaving it the empty shell of a room, littered with shards of something I didn’t want to put a name to, couldn’t _think_ to put a name to. None of the debris had touched me when I’d dropped to the ground, my hands over my head to block the blow I’d known, somehow, was coming.

She’d—tried to _hurt_ me. Let her power loose on me in a fit of temper, thrown that anger and rage at me, the one she claimed to love. Deliberate or not, I didn’t care—couldn’t. I couldn’t feel, couldn’t think, couldn’t _breathe_ as fear and exhaustion left me trembling so hard it shook my very bones, Zaneli’s sobs echoing in my ears as I forced myself to lower my arms.

I’d been afraid of her anger before, yes, but this—I’d never thought she’d _attack_ me.

And now I was _terrified._

There was devastation on her face, pain and fear, grief and guilt distinctly clear as tears slipped down her cheeks. She shifted toward me and I inched backwards before I could stop myself, making her halt in her tracks, eyes widening with horror. A dull roaring echoed in my ears—in my _mind_ , just outside the shields of black diamond that guarded it, as if someone had seen something and was trying to get in. As if Elizabeth—

 _No._ She didn’t care, and I _shouldn’t_ care. Though I could feel claws grazing my walls (gently, _pleadingly,_ as if trying to coax their way in rather than ripping it all to shreds), I ignored them, sat shivering in that perfect circle of untouched floor—as if there was a shield, conjured to protect me, and I wondered for a moment if Zaneli had guarded me even as her temper exploded.

That thought—that _hope_ fell away as she staggered toward me, tried to cross the line, and recoiled as if she’d hit something solid, something keeping _her_ out. As though there was something protecting me from a perceived threat even through my own terror. “Meliodas,” she whispered, her voice breaking over my name. _“Meliodas…”_

Mine. The shield was mine, it had come from _me_ and hovered around my body in a perfect dome, a wall of hardened air to match the wall of adamant surrounding my consciousness. I didn’t know what High Lady it had come from—one of the Solar Courts, perhaps, Lady Guila of Dawn or Merlin Spell-Cleaver of the Day Court. I didn’t care, either, huddling against the back wall of my shield as Zaneli pressed her hand against that shield, saying my name and begging, “ _Please. Please.”_ As if I was the only thing that mattered now, as if I mattered at all. Those words, that _begging_ broke something in me, broke that resolve from earlier, and cracked the shield in two.

 I didn’t move as she stepped over the line, as she dropped to her knees and cupped my face in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she wept. “Oh, Mother—gods, Meliodas, I’m so sorry.”

I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t listen to anything but that roaring in my ears from a land miles away, images flashing in my mind of velvet wings and open skies and a palace with no walls. I barely listened as she said, “I’ll try—to be better, to let go. I don’t…I can’t control it, sometimes, all this rage and this anger, fifty years of it with nowhere to go. Today was—I was angry, and you were an easy target, and with the Tithe and the things I said, all of it. Today…please, let’s forget today. _Please.”_

I didn’t fight it as she twined her arms around me, pulling my body against hers. Didn’t respond, either, feeling nothing but pure, raw _fear_ as she tucked her head into my neck and whispered onto my skin, as if the words would be absorbed by my very skin, as if she could impart everything she felt in the only way we were truly good at communicating—skin to skin and nothing else. “I couldn’t save you before, couldn’t protect you from them—I w _atched you die_. And when you said that, about…about me holding your head under the water, drowning you…am I any better than they were?”

 _It wasn’t true._ That was what she wanted to hear; those were the words she wanted me to say, but I—I _couldn’t._ They were the first words I’d pulled from the shattered scraps of my heart in months, and she had tried to hurt me for saying them. All that was left was silence, and _panic_ that threatened to swallow me whole. The light glinted sickeningly off the gold on my finger, the ring that marked me as hers.

“Please,” she was begging, and I could feel her tears against my skin as I held her, as I gazed at nothing. “Give me time…to get through this, to control this. Please.”

 _Get through what?_ I didn’t know what she was struggling with, what she was doing. She hadn’t told me a thing since Under-the-Mountain, and I’d just followed along because it was easier, and now the world thought me docile and any attempt to be _real_ , to be proud and assertive and what they had Made me into, got me hurt or kidnapped or killed. But I couldn’t speak, couldn’t say a single word—because I didn’t have an answer.

So I leaned into her touch, put my arms around her, because skin to skin was the only way I knew how to speak to her, too, and it seemed to be answer enough. “I’m sorry,” she breathed again, over and over and over. She didn’t stop saying it as I held her, gazing blankly at the wall over her shoulder.

 _You’ve given enough,_ she’d said, and maybe she was right. Maybe I’d given enough, given too much to a world that had given me nothing back.

The red paint had splattered on the wall behind us, thick and dark and oozing. And as I watched it slide down the cracked oak paneling, I thought it looked like blood.

* * *

 

Zaneli apologized to me nearly every moment for days after the incident in a dozen different ways. She made love to me, worshipped my body with everything she had (every broken, too-thin, pale and sickly piece of me, still dying despite everything)—but that had never been difficult for us, not even when I was human. It was the rest, the _ordinary_ things, the everyday communication and the little fights and learning things about each other, little details that we got tripped up on and brought everything crashing down.

But she was good to her word. There were fewer sentries when I wandered the grounds. Some remained, but none of them followed every step I made or reported instantly to Zaneli the second I paused to speak with someone. I was allowed to go on a ride through the woods without an escort and had almost felt _normal,_ like I was that human boy again who needed protection and kindness and nothing more.

The stable-hands, though, the servants, everyone but Derieri… I knew they reported to her the instant I left and the moment I returned, that the sentries still monitored _who_ I spoke to and any sign of agitation, of fear, of _dissent_.

Zaneli never said a word about that shield of pure, solid air I’d wielded against her, and things were so close to normal, to _good_ that I didn’t dare bring it up.

* * *

 

The days went by in a blur, each more monotonous than the last. Zaneli left again three days after the incident and now was away more often than not. She still wouldn’t speak to me of what she was doing, and I no longer had the courage to ask, was no longer deluded by the idea that the outcome would be anything good. She was a protector of the things she cared for, and I couldn’t change that—especially when she’d been exactly what I had needed, _who_ I had needed when I was frozen from the harshest of winters, my edges sharpened and bitter from starvation. There had been no joy in my life, and she had melted that cold hardness away, brought me a happiness I thought only existed in the fairy tales Estarossa loved listening to. I’d wanted it, _needed_ it—that protection, after living a life where I’d been the protector and provider.

I didn’t, _couldn’t_ wonder how it all had changed so abruptly, who I had become—what I wanted or needed now.

There was nothing in particular that I could do, and less that I actually _wanted_ to do, so I found myself spending most of my days curled up in one of the big armchairs in the library, practicing my reading and writing. _Improving,_ too, starting to read short stories bit by bit as I worked to pull up those mental shields and fortify them brick by brick. Sometimes I practiced that shield of solid air as well, savoring the silence that followed as it crept over and surrounded me, filling my veins, my head, stifling the constant whirl of anxiety—and my voice, drying it up to dust. Some days, I didn’t speak a word at all, not even to Derieri.

I was glad, though, that Zaneli wasn’t here to see me waking in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, shaking and panting, when she didn’t see me running to the bathroom to vomit on the worst nights. Glad that I didn’t have to offer comfort when she, too, was yanked from her dreams, when she shifted to that dark-furred beast that writhed beneath her skin and patrolled the grounds until dawn, monitoring for threats—threats that she would always deny to my face, but that I knew were there. And what comforts could I even offer when I was the source of so many of her fears?

She returned, though, for an extended stay two weeks after the Tithe, after the incident—and I forced down that low hum of irrational terror in me and decided I’d at least try to talk to her. I owed it to her for what she’d given me, to myself to get over this fear of her so things could return to normal. Zaneli seemed to have the same idea, greeting me with a kiss and keeping me company as much as she could without her duties getting in the way.

And things were…normal. As normal as they would ever be, anyways.

I woke up one morning to the sound of furious voices in the hallway outside my bedroom, a vicious, whispered conversation that I couldn’t quite make out and didn’t really care to. Nestling back into the pillows, I pulled the covers up over my head, closing my eyes. Despite the morning’s…a _ctivities,_ I’d been getting up later and later by the day, sometimes not leaving my room until it was time for lunch. Maybe I could get away with sleeping until afterwards, too, if Zaneli wasn’t going to come back to bed.

A low growl rippled through the air, my eyes slowly opening in response to the rage buried within the noise—and then a _tug,_ just like there had been during that first day in that wall-less palace, pulled in my gut. My blood ran cold as I sat up, goosebumps running up an arm that was a swirl of creamy skin and dark ink, tallying the days up in my mind as Zaneli hissed, _“Get out.”_

 _A month._ It had been a month. I froze as a response, too quiet for me to make anything out properly, reached my ears— _Elizabeth’s_ voice, _Elizabeth’s_ words, come to take me away again. The terror of the first time wasn’t there, though. I knew her, likely better than anyone outside her court did, and she wasn’t likely to torture me, not while she wanted my help.

I forced myself to sit up, pushing my hair out of my eyes. My clothes had been shredded by Zaneli the night before, my robe nowhere to be found, and I scowled—Elizabeth was _bound_ to comment, to try and get a rise out of me—before wrapping a blanket around my waist and padding into the hallway. Sure enough, Zaneli and Elizabeth were in the hall, staring each other down—or Zaneli was staring her down. Elizabeth was leaning against the wall with a languid smile playing out her lips, turning toward me as she heard the door open. Zaneli’s gaze snapped to me moments later, filled with horror and _fury_ , but I couldn’t bring myself to feel my usual fear of the anger through the cloud of apathy surrounding me.

Curiosity, however, slipped through as Elizabeth’s smile faltered and her brow furrowed. She looked…concerned, almost, those blue eyes wide as she took in the sight of me. “Meliodas,” she said, my name sounding strange and lyrical on her tongue. “Are you getting enough food here?” A blush coated the back of my neck at her words—I had skipped a few meals from a lack of energy, a lack of _will,_ but surely it wasn’t that serious. Zaneli hadn’t said anything, so I assumed nothing had been particularly noticeable. Zaneli’s hiss of “What?” moments later only made my face burn more—she hadn’t noticed anything off at all.

_So why did Elizabeth?_

Elizabeth’s eyes went dark and cold, the blue so deep it seemed almost black as she extended a hand toward me. Beckoning, commanding, but not smug— _angry._ There was a sharp fury seething under her skin, and I wondered why Zaneli didn’t notice, why she kept provoking that monster beneath the mask. “Let’s go.”

Zaneli was upon her in a second, slamming her back against the wall—and Elizabeth _let_ it happen, though she could have easily stepped aside or thrown her across the room. Of that much, I was certain, though I couldn’t figure out _why_. “He’ll come to you whenever he’s ready.” Those claws curled into delicate skin, a trickle of scarlet running down the gold-dusted hollow of her throat, and when Zaneli bared her teeth, they were curved and sharp. Elizabeth, though, looked merely bored despite the claws pricking her neck, actually reaching out to flick a speck of dust off of her sleeve. Her eyes never left mine despite the threat of death seemingly so close, and I found myself admiring her courage. Had Zaneli’s claws been reaching for me instead, I would’ve been crying from sheer panic.

To my surprise, Elizabeth’s red lips curved up in a wicked smile. “As far as _you_ recall, Meliodas darling, the last time Zaneli’s claws and teeth were near your throat, you kneed her in the stomach and proceeded to break several expensive vases in retribution.” She twirled one finger by her temple, and I felt those claws of smoke and shadow graze against my mind. Scowling, I hauled up my forgotten shields, making sure to blast a single word down that link between us before slamming the doors closed. _It’s too late—too early?—for this._

My annoyance with Elizabeth faded back into that veil of apathy as Zaneli’s snarl worsened my headache, resisting the urge to nudge her out of the way as she stepped more firmly between us. _“Shut your mouth,”_ she snarled, _“and get out.”_

The shallow wound in Elizabeth’s neck was already healing, but she took a step toward that sweeping staircase, inspecting her nails. She was wearing another sweeping gown, I realized after a moment, instead of the pants and jackets she’d seemed to prefer while I was with her. This one was a deep, deep violet that appeared nearly black, the swirling silks dusted with ruby and silver, her hair once more swept into a loose updo, the tattoos swirling up her arms and neck on full, proud display. Despite the fact that she was an intruder in another High Lady’s court, there was not an ounce of humility in her, in this female cloaked in night. Nothing but a savage kind of pride and a fearlessness that made itself terrifyingly clear when she tilted her head at me, ignoring Zaneli completely.

She could tear me to ribbons in a second, and in that moment, I realized that she could’ve done the same to the High Lady of Spring. “Get your wards inspected, would you, Zaneli? Cauldron knows what riffraff might follow in my wake. Oh, don’t look so insulted,” she added when a growl rippled through the air. “I’m surprised that you’re not fending off monsters and idiots alike every night if I could slip in without a trace. You and I both know that there are things that do not bow to _you_ , dearest Zaneli.” Her blue eyes cut a glance to me again. “And you—put some clothes on.”

I bared my teeth at her before whirling and stalking back to my room, and could’ve sworn she _smiled_ at my back as Zaneli followed. A real smile, too, not the catlike smirk she’d flashed Zaneli moments before…but then Zaneli followed me into the room, slamming the door behind her hard enough to shake those (tacky, in my personal opinion) gold-and-crystal chandeliers, fractals of light spinning ominously, and the thought vanished from my mind as my pounding headache returned. “How did she even get in?” I muttered, dropping the blanket and heading over to the ornate armoire containing the hundreds of garments Zaneli got me. The bright blue-and-silver Night Court attire was folded neatly at the bottom, where Derieri had hidden it from Zaneli’s sight—my friend had wanted to throw them away, but I convinced her not to. I’d just end up with another set next month (or maybe something like Under-the-Mountain, left bare and dripping with paint if she lost her patience), anyway, and at least those were more familiar than whatever she might try to spring on me.

“No idea,” Zaneli said, running her hands through her hair with a low growl as I pulled the top over my head. There was an undercurrent of hesitance in her voice, though, that revealed the statement for what it was—a lie. Just something else she refused to tell me. I couldn’t even bring myself to care as she added, “It’s just—a part of whatever game she’s trying to play.”

I tugged on the pants, turned away from her. “If war is coming—” I felt her tense behind me, felt that bubbling anger start to seethe again, and ignored it despite the fear pounding in my chest— “then perhaps we ought to be mending bridges instead of pushing her away. She’s—she could be useful, you know.” We hadn’t spoken of war, of Erebus since my first day back, since that interrogation. I still shuddered at the slimy feeling of betrayal that had come over me when I’d talked about the Night Court, but I hid it from her as I dug through the armoire for the matching silk shoes.

Zaneli snorted as I glanced toward her, slipping them on. “You know what she is as well as I do,” she spat, and I flinched despite myself, remembering the name Elizabeth had been known as during those fifty years, that insult that she wore as a crown. “Besides, what use is an ally that doesn’t obey—one that keeps a person locked in a bargain?”

 _Obey?_ High Ladies were supposed to be equals, the only ones able to go toe-to-toe with one another and live. Surely she couldn’t expect another to bow to her constantly—that wasn’t (as far as I knew, at least—I had little knowledge of war and politics, though I had picked up a little bit from Jenna and Ludociel) what being allies was. And as for the bargain… “Perhaps she’s keeping me in the bargain to offer an opportunity—so that you’ll at least _try_ to listen to her reasoning.” I trotted over to where she sat on the bed, furrowing my brow slightly—the clothes really did feel looser than they had last month—as her jade-green eyes blinked up at me pleadingly.

“Meliodas…” She reached for me, but something in me just couldn’t—couldn’t _abide_ her touch right now, and I stepped back, out of range. Once, the hurt that flashed across her face would’ve torn me to pieces, but all it did now was widen the chasm in me where _something_ had been. “Why do you need to know these things? Wouldn’t it just be easier, better, if you could recover in peace, leave this to us? You earned that for yourself, with your blood and your soul and your courage. I—I’m trying to be better, to listen, to put less sentries on you, so please, just let the rest of it—” She inhaled slowly, those claws sliding back into her skin as she shook her head, looking tired. “This isn’t the time for this conversation.”

 _Is it ever?_ I wondered. Whenever I tried to talk to her, really talk, it was never the time for this conversation, or that conversation, and the one time I had tried to speak through her insistence on silence, she’d—she’d hurt me. Because she didn’t want to hear that this wasn’t working. But I didn’t say a word, had no energy, no will left to, and I felt everything I might’ve once dared to say turn to dust on my tongue. So I cupped her face in my hands, memorized the lines of it, the delicate planes and the precise shade of green of her eyes, and didn’t fight her as she pulled me into an embrace and held me tightly.

There was a noise—a soft, amused cough—from the hall, and Zaneli’s body tightened, every muscle going taut as her grip tightened on me. But I…I’d had enough fighting, and standing in that open, peaceful place atop that silvery mountain, watching the stars until sunrise and letting the scent of jasmine wash over me and empty my mind... I wanted it. I wanted to go back there, even if I didn’t want to be with Elizabeth. It was better than hiding in the library and walking on eggshells for the rest of eternity.

I pulled away from her death-grip, and walked back into the hall, Zaneli remaining. Elizabeth was frowning at me when I came out, tilting her head to the side like I was a novelty of some kind. Snapping at her seemed less appealing than usual, though, and would require more fire, more energy than I had—would require caring what she thought.

As if she’d heard the thoughts cycling slowly through my head, her expression became unreadable, almost bored as she extended a hand toward me. I reached to take it—only to recoil as Zaneli appeared before me and shoved her hand away. “End her bargain right here, right now, and I will give you _anything._ Anything you want, anything at all. Just—end it.”

My blood turned to ice. “Are you out of your _mind?”_ I hissed, reaching for her shoulder—surely she could see how stupid that was, what it could entail, what Elizabeth could ask of her— _kill yourself, give me your territory, give me your troops, fight my war_. I wasn’t worth that, especially not when it came to asking _Elizabeth,_ the most capricious and powerful of the High Ladies, what she might want from a territory dripping in riches and resources. Zaneli didn’t so much as blink in my direction, though, her eyes fixed only on Elizabeth, as if I had no say in it at all.

Elizabeth, though, just arched a brow and stepped around Zaneli like a piece of furniture, taking my boney, pale hand in her slim, calloused one. “I already have everything I want,” she said, and before I could even say goodbye, a wind of midnight and jasmine gathered us up—

And we were gone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth has always been a wild card, but it's rare when she lays herself bare, leaves herself open and raw. But Meliodas has mastered the art of denial and has no intention of stopping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: a character alludes to their sexual assault in this chapter. I will add it to the tags immediately.
> 
> Stage five of the burst publishing! Please drop me a kudos or leave a nice review to keep me motivated so I can start writing part two when I come home from camp!

“What the _hell_ happened to you?”

Those were the first words from Elizabeth’s mouth, spilling from her lips before the Night Court had fully appeared around us. Her tone was arrogant as ever, playful and pushy, but for once, no anger sparked in me—nothing but that bone-deep exhaustion that settled back in me as soon as the marble floors appeared under my feet, the palace gleaming in the morning sunlight. The words didn’t provoke me as they once would’ve, though—I knew I looked terrible. It wasn’t like she’d given me a chance to wash up before spiriting me away, though I doubted that even the world’s longest bath could scrub away all of _this._ “Why don’t you use that magic of yours and see for yourself?”

No bite to the words, no heat, no rage. I was too _tired._

Elizabeth laughed, laughed and gave me a wink that I knew was meant to infuriate me. “Oh, Meliodas darling, but that would be so _boring._ Come on—twenty questions? Thought for a thought? Another heartfelt discussion on war and the merits of being your own person?” Her eyes glittered, waiting for me to take the bait, to bite and snarl and rage or even offer a grin of my own, as I’d had to stop myself from doing once the last time I was here.

But I didn’t smile, didn’t blink. Didn’t feel the sparks she was trying to stoke up burning within me like they had last time—as though they’d been tamped out somehow. Maybe it was for the best, I thought. Maybe I wouldn’t have to fear Zaneli’s wrath if I had no more ways to feel—emotion, it seemed, had only led to me being hurt in the past. Maybe if I stopped trusting, I wouldn’t be surprised be betrayal or pain or any of it. Maybe this emptiness was better.

“No shoe-throwing this time?” She blinked down at me, tilting her head thoughtfully—her expression was still unreadable, but I caught something that looked like concern in her gaze. _Not that it matters._ Still, I could hear the words for what they really were— _come on, Meliodas. Play with me._

I turned toward the stairs that led to my room and the heavenly bath, the cloud-soft bed that awaited me, the promise of a dreamless sleep too good to pass up. Elizabeth’s hand caught at mine as I took a step, though, her fingers intertwining with smaller, more fragile ones, and I glanced back at her slowly. “Eat breakfast with me,” she said, and it was—it was a _plea,_ from a female who could tear me to pieces and turn me to dust with a flick of her hand. That hand wrapped gently around mine, almost protectively. “There’s tea,” she added with a small smile. “And that melon you liked from last time. It’s Di’s favorite too, so you might have to fight her for it tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. The idea of tomorrow was exhausting, too daunting to consider for even a heartbeat—but I _was_ hungry, and my clothes were far looser on my body than I remembered them being. If I didn’t have to talk, if I could just sit there and eat something, even something small, then maybe she’d leave me alone. Breakfast, and then I could go back to bed as I’d wanted earlier.

And that—that _look_ in her eyes really was worry. Maybe just for losing her eyes in the Spring Court, but something told me that this was something she’d continue to annoy me about until I agreed. She’d never said that breakfast had to be much, either, or that I’d have to say anything. That rich, dark tea and sweet, light melon, too…it was tempting, and fighting her would take too much energy.

I turned back toward her, inclined my head slightly, didn’t try to break her grip. Putting that much venom into an action now seemed exhausting, seemed like it would take a fire I couldn’t muster. Somehow, she only looked _more_ concerned as she led the way back to that glass table on the veranda. “Don’t you have other things to do?”

“Oh, always.” She rolled her shoulders, tilted her head toward me with a grin. “I have so many damned things to do that sometimes I’m tempted to let my power loose upon the world, wipe the slate clean. It’s amazing what you’d do for a moment’s peace, with everyone talk-talk-talking in your ear all the time.” She swept me a bow, that dazzling grin back on her face, but even that casual mention of her devastating power failed to pull me out of this heavy cloak of nothingness. I could’ve sworn her eyes softened, though, when she added, “But I’ll forever make time for you, Meliodas darling.”

I didn’t answer, too tired to fire back or even shake her hand off. She led me to the table, pulled out my chair (it was such a _Zaneli_ move that I balked, stumbling back a step before I could stop myself) before sliding into the one across from me. “I felt a spike of fear this past month through this magnificent bond of ours. Anything…oh, _interesting_ happen in that magical place called Spring?” She was cutting up some kind of meat into neat little slices, I noticed dimly, registering the movement of her hands more than the sight of it. “Like a tantrum, perhaps? But whose, I wonder…Jenna’s? Ludociel? Or—”

“It was nothing.” The words slipped out instinctively—but it _was,_ and it was none of her business besides. I watched her load ham and melon onto my plate, setting pastries and biscuits down next to it. It was more than I’d be able to force down, but my stomach did manage to muster some hunger after a moment or so. “Besides, you probably already know.”

She paused in the middle of scooping fresh-looking berries onto my plate, her eyes darkening as the shadows of those magnificent wings flickered before vanishing. The very mountain trembled beneath us in response to the soft, malevolent wrath humming around her, before she resumed her apparent quest to empty the serving bowl. “I have my suspicions, yes. None of them point to it being _nothing.”_

“Then why ask?” I stabbed a berry with my fork, shoving it around my plate absently for a few moments before biting into it. My voice was icy despite my exhaustion, and I kept my eyes on hers as I chewed on it.

Blue swirled into almost-black as I watched her warily, and she tilted her head back with a sigh. “Normally through that bond of ours, I can feel— _something,_ even with your shields up.” She poured herself a cup of something that probably _wasn’t_ tea from one of two silver pots, pouring me a drink from the other one right after, one that smelled like mint and summer berries. “Which, by the way, is rather impressive; your shielding abilities have improved marvelously since last time we saw each other.” She lifted her cup in some sarcastic approximation of a toast, before taking a long sip. “But these days, all I’ve felt is silence on your end. Emptiness, like a light was snuffed out—I’ve been tugging on the bond now and then just to make sure you’re _alive.”_ Shadows flickered in her eyes like dancing flames as she regarded me, a swirl of emotions I couldn’t read and didn’t care to puzzle out in that piercing gaze. “Lo and behold, I finally get a response from you one day—and it’s pure, undiluted _terror._ All I get are flashes of you, and _her,_ and that all-consuming fear, and then nothing.”

I cut up one of the pastries into tiny pieces, more interested in the triangles I was making when I sliced it up than the words that had just come out of her mouth. “It was just an argument.” My eyelids drifted closed, exhaustion sweeping over me— _more questions, no answers, Zaneli’s anger or Elizabeth’s digging…what’s the point of fighting?_ “It doesn’t matter.”

“If things that didn’t matter made people look like death warmed over, I’d be a crone by now.” She flashed me that wicked smirk, but there was steel lining her smile now, glittering like a blade.

“Get out of my head.” I didn’t bother snapping at her, just kept cutting up the pastry and the meat until there was no way I could reasonably avoid eating it, taking small bites even as my stomach protested. _Please,_ I added to myself, and nearly sent the word pulsing down the bond. She opened her mouth—no doubt to demand that I push her out, that I keep those shields up, to issue another challenge. But I just…didn’t care. About this, about her prodding, about the power that thrummed in my blood and bones, the way I’d walked through Jenna’s mind like walking through a sunlit forest on a clear day, about the war and the anger and my own fear. About _anything._ “Where’s Diane?”

She tensed, like a wildcat about to pounce, and my shoulders stiffened, ready for the provocation. The light in her eyes flickered out, though and she leaned back once more, sighing. “Away. She has duties to attend to.” Shadows wove around her body, delicate traces of night swirling around pale golden skin as I continued eating. “The wedding’s on hold, I presume?”

I nodded, unwilling to speak as I finished the pastries, digging into the small pile of melon. Elizabeth hummed low in her throat. “What, no _‘Don’t ask stupid questions, you mind-invading bitch,’_ or my personal favorite—and a _classic,_ too— _‘Go to hell, Elizabeth?’”_ She gave me a grin. “I’m taking free hits today. Speak your worst, darling.”

I just reached for my cup of tea, dumping sugar into it. Her hands were curled loosely on the table, whispers of black smoke curling around her fingers and weaving in and out of them, making them look—like talons. _Claws._ I forced away the thrill of fear I felt at the sight of them, at the memory of another set of claws, and sipped from the tea as she purred, “Did you give my offer any thought?”

“I’m not going to work with you,” I mumbled into my cup, letting my eyes drift closed for a second. I could feel that dark, heavy calm settling over her, like an impending thunderstorm.

“And why,” she said, her voice as soft as silk, as the start of a nightmare, “are you refusing me?”

The tea in my cup seemed more appealing than answering her question, but I forced myself to set it down on the table, keeping my eyes on my plate. “I’m not…this war that you say is coming, I’m not going to be a part of it. I _can’t,_ I—” _Foes to the front and the back, send off the wrong message, we will not train her, you would die on an immortal battlefield, you need to be protected, you are_ weak. “You say I should be a weapon. That I should make my voice heard instead of being a pawn.” I shrugged. “Pawns and weapons are both tools. The only difference is who wields it—and I’d rather be a pawn for someone I trust than a weapon for you.” _Do you, though?_ an insidious voice in my head whispered. _Do you want to be a pawn? Do you trust Zaneli? Are you really content to sit back and let the world burn, content that you’ve_ given enough?

 I squeezed my eyes shut, lifted my head as shadows danced around Elizabeth, some strange flare of temper pulsing around her. “I want your help. If I were going to manipulate you, I could’ve done it far more easily.”

That—that was true, but I ignored that whispering voice, ignored the fire in her eyes, ignored the sense in her words, clung to something that was _also_ true. “You want my help because it’ll piss off Zaneli.”

Shadows danced and twisted over her shoulders, pluming outwards before dissipating, like her wings were trying to take form. Her eyes blazed with a kind of incandescent light, savage and wild as she breathed, “ _Fine.”_ Her hands clenched around the wood of the table. “Fine. I dug that grave myself, with everything I’ve done, all I did Under-the-Mountain. But this isn’t about my quarrel with Zaneli, nor about hers with me and mine. This is—bigger, bigger than Britannia, than anything we’ve faced. _I need your help.”_

 _Ask me,_ I could hear her pleading beneath those sharp, cold words. _Ask me why._

I stayed silent.

Elizabeth’s voice was quiet when she spoke again, and her hands were shaking slightly, those blazing blue eyes shining overbright. “I was a prisoner in _his_ hell for nearly fifty years. I was tormented—beaten, _fucked_ until only telling myself who I was, what I had to protect, _who_ I had to protect kept me from trying to find a way to end it.” She pressed a hand to her heart, those shadows evaporating as her eyes gleamed with—tears. " _Please,_ Meliodas—help me keep that from happening to the land I love. To Britannia. Not for me, but—for her. For _them.”_

Some part of my heart that had felt cold, empty, distant since the _incident_ ached and bled at the words, at the memory of what her _title_ had been beneath Mael’s thumb— _Mael’s Whore._ Zaneli had called her that, and Jenna, and so many other Fae, and she had taken that title, had made it a crown of broken glass and blackthorns. But it had slashed her open, too. I wondered if she woke up screaming sometimes, if she too had spent nights crouched over the toilet and hurling her guts up, if those magnificent wings were used to fly until she bled to remind her that no walls were left to lock her in. And my heart _shattered._

But Zaneli had made exceptions, had lightened the guards’ presence, allowed me to roam a little more freely, rid the manor of the courtiers. She was trying. _We_ were trying. I wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ jeopardize that, couldn’t bring about another attack.

I went back to eating.

Elizabeth didn’t say another word.

* * *

 

I didn’t join her for dinner, and she didn’t pull the bond. Nor did she at breakfast, which I ended up sleeping too late to eat. Noon, though—when I managed to drag myself out of bed, she was there, no sign of the grief and hurt and sorrow from before. Just that faint, endlessly amused smile, her eyes glittering as she pulled my chair out from the book-laden table.

“Copy these sentences,” she drawled, perching on the edge of the table and handing me a slip of paper. My gaze flicked to the paper and ink pinned neatly to the table, the familiar little mahogany desk tucked neatly in the alcove, the shimmering curtains that floated on the breeze. My sanctuary during my time here, at least last month.

I took the paper, unfolded it and read perfectly: _“Elizabeth is a spectacular person. Elizabeth is the center of my world. Elizabeth is the best lover a male can dream of.”_ I put it down, folded it back up and took a sheet of paper from the pile laid out, writing them out neatly before handing it back to her.

Claws of smoke and moonlight slashed at my mind seconds later—and bounced harmlessly off a glimmering shield of black diamond. I lifted my head to meet her gaze, those shimmering blue eyes widening fractionally. “You practiced.”

I got to my feet and walked away. “I had nothing better to do.”

That night, she left a pile of books by my door with a note written in that familiar, slanting scrawl. _I have business elsewhere,_ it read. _The house is yours, as are these novels. Send word if you need me._

The days went by, beautiful sunsets and sunrises swirling together in my mind as I wandered the vast, empty palace, a book in hand and my heart empty—and I didn’t.

* * *

 

Elizabeth returned at the end of the week, striding into my favorite little lounge area. It overlooked a waterfall that reflected the sky, like a pool of crystal blue or shining midnight pouring down the silvery mountains that extended as far as the eye could see. Curled on that sprawling, plush sofa, I’d read through almost an entire novel, proceeding slowly with a dictionary always within reach for when I encountered a word I didn’t understand. It had been slow going, tedious, and the only reason I was nearing the end was that I hadn’t done anything else all week, but it had filled my time. There was some strange sense of companionship, a steadying presence found in these characters who did not exist and never would but somehow made me feel less…alone. Less like a lamb in a land full of wolves, and more like something new, something different, less _afraid._

The boy who’d hurled a bone-spear at Mael in defiance, though, who had stood tall in the face of certain death…he was still gone, lost somewhere in the gaping chasm within me. I didn’t know if I could get him back, if he was even still _alive._ Perhaps that boy had died when his neck was snapped and faerie immortality filled his veins.

I barely paused to look up as Elizabeth sat down on one of the oversized armchairs, dressed— _casually,_ today, in a deep blue sweater and black pants, her feet bare. She was carrying two plates laden with food, both of which she set on the coffee table before me. “You seem quite happy in this sedentary lifestyle.” She gave me a smile, lips twisting upwards mischievously as I lowered the book. “I thought I might as well finalize it for you, bring your food up.”

Hunger was already brewing in my stomach, and I dipped my head to her, setting the book aside. “Thank you,” I murmured.

To my surprise, she barked a laugh. “Well, _that’s_ certainly not what I expected. What happened to _‘High Lady and servant?’_ Or maybe: _‘whatever it is you want, you can go shove it up your ass, Elizabeth?’_ Ooh, or, _‘I don’t want anything from you, you snake.’_ That one’s always a favorite.”

 I ignored her rambling, reaching for one of the plates—which slid away as soon as my fingers grazed the porcelain. And then further as I reached again, until it slid into Elizabeth’s hand, forcing my eyes to meet hers as she set it down. The amusement had left her face, replaced with something akin to worry. “Tell me how to help you.”

I reached for the plate again, but she kept it just out of reach. She spoke again, and shadow streamed loose from her body, as if her words were wearing away at some lock on her power, smoke swirling around her fingers as great wings of shadow spread from her back. “It’s been months, Meliodas—months, and you’re fading away like a _ghost._ Diane saw it after barely five minutes of speaking with you, I see it every time I _look_ at you—” I found myself wondering if the bags under my eyes were that obvious, my body _that_ thin and sickly as she demanded, “Does no one over there bother to ask what the hell is happening? What you _need?_ Does your High Lady—does she not care?”

She cared. Zaneli _cared_ , I knew she did, even if that care was slowly suffocating me, even if caring _so much_ meant caging me in that house. “She’s—giving me space to sort it out,” I managed, a little venom sneaking into my words and making them nearly unrecognizable to my own ears. “She’s…better, now.”

“Then why do you look _worse?”_ Her words struck a chord in my heart, made any protests die in my throat as she barreled on. “Let me help you, Meliodas, please—we went through enough Under-the-Mountain, under Mael—”

 _Mocking laughter, wild music, cages of stone, golden eyes watching watching forever watching, paint and silk and pain—_ I flinched against the onslaught of memories, shuddering. She’d been—gods, that _mask_ she’d worn down there had been more terrifying than any feat I’d seen. Those cold blue eyes watching from the foot of Mael’s throne, the way she’d snapped the necks and minds of the faeries I’d watched be dragged out as traitors…and then those same blue eyes, _burning_ as she entered my cell, while I was dying of an infected wound. _“I’ll heal you,”_ she’d purred. _“For two weeks with me a month, spent with me and mine.”_

A week. I’d gotten her to whittle it down to a week, and after that, I’d been her _pet—_ paraded around on her arm, ever watched by those blue eyes that could turn from frost to flame in seconds, toyed with, faerie wine poured down my throat and made to dance for the amusement of Mael’s court. She’d seen me at my lowest, and I—I had gotten a glimpse of the female under the mask. The one disgusted with herself, who _loathed_ every inch of her body after giving it up to Mael, who told me that she felt once that she would _drown_ in all the blood on her hands, that she deserved it. The one who had saved Jenna’s life and mine when my inability to read had nearly cost me the second trial, the one who had told me how much she missed the sky, missed flying. Who had licked away my tears to keep me angry, keep me from losing hope—who had screamed my name over and over as Mael tortured me to death, who had rushed forward with blade in hand to kill him while Zaneli was frozen. Who had said she wanted her children to know that she fought him at the end.

But then that female vanished with the wind, and the next time I’d seen her, she’d been calculating and wicked and mocking again. Once more the High Lady of the Night Court, ruler of the Court of Nightmares, Queen of Darkness, Death Incarnate. Once more ruthless and cruel and remorseless, and I came to believe that what I’d first thought had just been a dropped guard was instead another manipulation, just to take something from Zaneli and get me in her clutches. That the female who ached for the sky and fought for me even through Mael’s strikes was a pretty lie painted over the ugly truth, and I’d loathed her for taking advantage of my human heart.

I glimpsed that female now, though, through the strange _understanding_ , in those blue eyes, in the hands that wrapped gently around mine. “He wins,” Elizabeth breathed. “That son of a bitch wins if you let yourself fall apart.” I wondered if that was what she told herself, when everything got to be too much, when her own nightmares struck deep in the night and gouged at her heart. If that was what she’d told herself for months now.

I freed my hands of hers and lifted my book again, firing two words down that strange bond of ours before slamming my shields back around my mind. _Conversation over._ Because it was—I belonged to Zaneli, not to her, no matter what masks she put up or tore away. I couldn’t question that, couldn’t question _her._ Couldn’t let myself wonder if maybe Elizabeth was right.

Fury sparked in her eyes at my words. _“Like hell it is,”_ she hissed, and _power_ washed up and over my hands, sealing the book shut. I dug my fingers into the pages, trying to pry it open to no avail, the characters that had kept me company throughout the week once more locked away, the monster in her rising back to the surface as _feeling_ spread through me, resentment and anger and grief and confusion all swirling together—and finding a target in her.

Bitch. Arrogant, presuming _bitch._ Slowly, _slowly_ I raised my eyes to hers, feeling not fiery, all-consuming wrath, but…ice. Glittering, wicked ice, creeping through my veins and freezing me from the inside out as I bared my teeth at her. I could _feel_ the frost kissing my palms as I hurled the book at her, watched as it glimmered wickedly along the leather cover.

She shielded swiftly enough that it bounced away harmlessly, pages unfurling as she unlocked it and shot me a feral grin. _“Good,”_ she breathed, night creeping along her skin. “Show me what else you have, Meliodas _darling._ Show me all that we seven queens gave to you.”

Fire, blasting through my bones and melting the ice at those words, tinting my vision red and sending my heart thumping. _Fire,_ all-consuming and hungry and devouring the emptiness. My fingers curled into fists as I snarled at her, blazing from within.

And the High Lady of the Night Court looked… _relieved_ at the sight of it, something within her relaxing at the sight of an emotion outside of that hollow cold, that suffocating silence. At this wrath that made me want to rage and burn and turn the world to dust and ash. And for a moment, I reveled in it, the burning and the euphoria and fury churning in my gut, the flames licking up my skin. For a moment, I felt _invincible._

But then I thought about tomorrow—about returning to that manor with those sentries, the patrols, the secrets and the rage brimming just beneath Zaneli’s skin, the reminders that I was not enough, that I was too fragile to be anything but her lover… A shudder ran through me, my flames extinguishing as I sank back into the plush sofa, frozen again. I watched the light drain from Elizabeth’s eyes at the sight, as the shadows vanished.

She pushed the plate toward me. “Anytime you need a playmate—” her lips curled up into a wry grin, though it didn’t reach her eyes— “whether it’s during our marvelous week together or some other time, you let me know.”

A reminder of a standing invitation. A promise of rescue if I should ever ask, handed to me not as a privilege, but as a right—by a person I’d loathed until a few short weeks ago, and who I now didn’t know what to feel for. I couldn’t muster a response, exhausted from just those few moments of anger, and I watched her walk away before tugging the plate close enough for me to eat from.

I was in a free fall with no end, trapped in some endless vortex—had been for a while, too. From the second I’d stabbed that Fae youth in the heart and watched his blood spread across the marble floor, from the day the second Fae had watched me fearlessly and wished me no fear, no pain, no evil even as I sunk the blade into her chest.

I didn’t have the courage to call out to her as I devoured the food.

* * *

 

The next morning, Zaneli was waiting in the shadow of that gnarled, mighty oak in the garden that had once seemed like an ancient guardian, some wise giant set to watch over the Spring Court. Now I thought it looked twisted, sick and dying in this place, festering amidst the never-changing season and the sickly-sweet scent of roses. Her expression was murderous at the sight of Elizabeth, the High Lady of Night once more masked, her gown a slinky creation of a green so dark it shimmered black, draping her form and leeching color from her skin.

A cold, cunning predator had replaced the mischievous, endlessly amused female from the past week, and there was nothing amused, nothing _alive_ in her smile as she stepped back from me. Her hand lingered on my shoulder, and I could’ve sworn she squeezed it comfortingly before dropping her hand.

Zaneli growled at me, “Get inside.”

There was fury, pure and simple and _petrifying,_ on her face. I found myself quivering under that vicious gaze, looking between her and Elizabeth. _No more,_ I knew—there would be no more solitary rides or walks through the grounds.

Elizabeth’s blue eyes found mine, burning with emotion. And I almost wanted to ask her to take me back, to—to _free me,_ because I knew that I would be broken by the next month. But I didn’t.

“Fight it,” she said to me—and then she was gone.

The rage left Zaneli’s face as she looked at me, jade eyes hollow with grief and stifled anger. “I’m fine,” I forced out, and her shoulders slumped with relief, her head bowing. Her crown of petals glinted in the sunlight, gilded gold and— _red,_ today, rubies and garnets and scarlet roses, and for a moment I wanted to rip it off, burn it to ash as I stomped down my sudden panic.

“I’ll find a way to end this,” Zaneli said roughly, raising her head, and I—I wanted to believe her. I knew she’d do anything to reach that end, that goal, to make sure I was safe. But I didn’t know how to tell her that it wasn’t Elizabeth causing this sickness in me, this hollowness.

I didn’t say a word.

She made me walk through every single detail I’d learned at Elizabeth’s home, replay every conversation I had with her. I told her everything, my voice barely more than a whisper as I fought that slimy, bizarre feeling that settled with every word I spoke.

 _Protect, protect, protect—_ I could see the word in her eyes, written on her skin, feel it in every touch of my body that night. I had been taken from her once in the most permanent of ways, and she would tear everything apart to keep that from happening again. Even me, so long as I was alive and _safe._

The sentries returned in full force the next morning.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meliodas doesn't know how to tell Zaneli that her home is a cage-not without risking her ire again. Not without breaking entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Last part of my burst publishing. Now I can finally sleep!

I wasn’t permitted out of sight of the house for the next twelve days, a curfew of sundown set for me (and me alone). The sentries who would actually speak to me claimed some threat had broken onto the grounds, that Zaneli and Jenna had been called away to handle it. I pleaded with Zaneli to tell me what it was (to no avail, as usual), and then with Jenna who’d gotten _that look_ on her face, the one she got when she wanted to tell me something, but her loyalty to Zaneli got in the way. Derieri knew no more than I did, so I retreated back into my bubble of silence and didn’t ask twice.

Ludociel returned while they were gone—to protect me, keep me company, _watch me,_ I wasn’t sure. But he was the only one left now, the other courtiers having been sent away, those Spring lords and ladies retreating to their own estates, away from the sickly little former human who haunted the manor like a ghost. I was glad for it, though, grateful that I would no longer have to try and remember their personal histories, names, hobbies when I inevitably ran into them, no longer endure their blatant stares at the tattoo twining around my hand and forearm or their whispers. But Zaneli had been friends with them, had liked the manor being full of sound and chatter and laughter, and had sent them away because of _me_. I wondered if she resented me for it, if she’d come to use this as another weapon in yet another inevitable argument, if I was _worth it._ Their words, though…the chatter and the conversation always seemed insincere, twisted, pretty words masking blades and savagery.

When I’d first been brought to Britannia, I’d seen a land of wolves and me the lamb brought fresh to the slaughter. Now, though…they were still wolves, some kinder and some crueler, but I was…

I didn’t know what I was.

The silence, though, after so much _noise_ roaring through my head, was a relief that I could’ve basked in for a century, even as it grew heavy, as much a burden as it was a gift. It filled my head slowly, seeped in and left nothing but unfeeling emptiness, which I sank into without a fight.

Eternity. I was High Fae, and immortal, and had all the time in the world to see _everything_ it could possibly offer. All I had left, though, was this silence, this hollow emptiness. Facing that for all eternity was terrifying, my own immortality yawning beneath me like a chasm reaching up to swallow me whole, so I ignored it— _stifled_ it, buried myself in the library and burned through books every day. Those tales of people I’d never heard, places I’d never been ( _and never would_ , some poisonous voice whispered to me) were a lifeline to reality, keeping me from lapsing entirely into silent despair.

Zaneli returned after eight days of this. I didn’t look up from my book as she kissed my brow, my hand where her ring of gold rested, my nose, her hand cupping my cheek as she looked me over—and left. _Again._ For the study, this time, where Ludociel waited for her with new information. It might have been only a few doors down from the library, but it felt like miles between us, an insurmountable distance left behind where a bond I’d believed was impenetrable rested.

I splayed my tattooed hand against the pages, traced the lines of ink with my other hand, staring into that open eye. Sometimes I imagined it winking, or falling half-lidded, and sometimes I caught myself nearly reaching for that link between myself and Elizabeth, wanting to tug on it—just for someone to _play with,_ as she’d put it. To break this cage of silence and emptiness and hollow emotion. To _feel,_ even if it was rage and annoyance.

I stopped myself now before I could, curled my hand into a fist and watched the intricate designs seem to shift and move. Some kind of _anger_ started to rise in me, anger and despair. I was never to hear anything, good news or bad, and if I so much as brought up Erebus—which I’d done exactly once, quietly, to Ludociel, desperate to know what he thought—I was shut down within seconds. Zaneli wanted to make me her consort, the Lord of Spring ( _never High Lord,_ that voice whispered again, _never her equal, always lesser, always loving you just enough to please her but never enough to have to_ try _for you)_ , but it seemed my role would be lord of the manor house and nothing more.

And yet I was not allowed to even roam this place fully.

I got to my feet and padded into the hall silently, tucking my unfinished book under my arm as I gazed down the hall. It was a short distance to the study, one I could cover in seconds. I could stand by the door, listen in, maybe, just _do_ something—

 _Disobedience._ My stomach tightened at the thought of what she might do, and I backed up a step, ready to retreat back to my little bubble of soundless, emotionless peace. Before I could vanish back into safety, though, my eyes caught a glimmer of gold.  _Gold,_ my mind hissed, _gold, gold like_ his _eyes he can’t be here he’s_ dead. I froze, tensing as instinct took over, that swell of _power_ roaring through my veins as that glimmer of gold stepped forward—before it all rushed out of me with a gasp of relief.

Not Mael. _Jenna,_ with those strange eyes of hers, turquoise and gold, flesh and metal, her gaze fixed on my hands as she neared me. Hands that were curling into the hem of my tunic, shredding the fabric as claws—sleek, curved, _sharp—_ grew out from my nails. Not those talons of smoke and shadow, but flesh and bone, mimicking the ones that had shredded through my clothes countless times. _No._ My own heartbeat roared in my ears as I stared blankly down at them. _Stop, stop, stopstopstop—_

It did, the claws retracting into my fingers, and my body sagged with relief. That power humming in my bones vanished like a candle winking out, dissipating back into nothing as I stared at Jenna, the concern in her gaze as her eyes slid to where Zaneli and Ludociel had vanished, my lover and her friend still unaware of all that was in me—and then dipped her head to me, taking my wrist. I let her lead me away, down the sweeping staircase of oak and gold to the empty second levels. I kept my gaze on the floor, unable to stomach looking up at the paintings— _my_ paintings, of roses and rolling hills and starlit skies over beautiful forests. Good paintings, from a time when _I_ had been good, had been selfless and less of a hypocrite, less of a coward, less—less _ruined._

My eyes remained on the floor, but placing where we were wasn’t too difficult. We passed my room, passed Jenna’s moments later. Servants’ quarters, storage rooms, treasuries and smaller, less formal dining areas (I wondered absently why we didn’t use those when it was just the three of us, instead of that long, long table that placed us what felt like miles apart), and then a second study, this one bearing no signs of new plaster or furniture. Older, but pristine, untouched, and with a window wide enough that I could _breathe._ Jenna made a point of throwing open the curtains, though the windows stayed tightly shut.

“How long have the claws been appearing?”

There was concern in her voice, roughening it, sharpening her gaze. I wondered how to tell her—about the handprints burned into the dining table, the frost that coated Elizabeth’s book, the shield of hardened air, the swirling shadows, the way I’d slipped into her mind like passing between rooms. Realized, as soon as I opened my mouth, that I _couldn’t,_ had no will to share that with her—with Zaneli. “This was the first time.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, exhaling slowly before meeting my gaze again. “I can’t promise that I’ll get her to change her mind. There’s only so much I can say, so much I can do—” she broke off with a frustrated sigh. “The powers will manifest whether we want them to or not, so we should at least show you how to use them, even if she won’t let you fight. Enough so that you aren’t consumed by them in the end.”

“Does that happen?” Elizabeth had said something along the same lines, and I’d wondered if maybe it was a trick, something to scare me into obeying. If Jenna was worried, though…

That eye of metal clicked and whirled as she blinked, before bowing her head. “Often? No. But for one as powerful as you, as powerful as a High Lady…it’s happened in the past. I’ll ask Zaneli tonight,” she added, and squeezed my hand comfortingly before leaving the room. I let my eyes close as I sank into an armchair, tilting my head back as her footsteps echoed and vanished.

I already knew what the answer would be.

I dozed off in that armchair, slept until dinner, roused myself enough to head down eat (alone, in silence— _just an ordinary day)_ —and when I went downstairs toward the dining room, the raised voices of Zaneli, Jenna, and Ludociel sent me right back up the steps, unable to keep myself from listening.

 _No better than Elizabeth, are you?_ a nasty voice whispered in the back of my mind, but I pushed it back—pushed it back and stayed, stretching my senses out to hear what they would not bother to tell me.

 _They will hunt him, and kill him like a common thief_ , Ludociel had hissed at Jenna.

Jenna had growled back, _They’ll do it anyway for a thousand other reasons, so what’s the difference? At least give him the chance to survive if it comes to that._

 _The   difference_ , Ludociel had seethed, _lies in us having the advantage of this knowledge—it won’t be Meliodas alone who is targeted for the gifts stolen from those High Ladies_. _Your children_ , he then said to Zaneli, who growled audibly _, will also have such power. Other High Ladies will know that. And if they do not kill Meliodas outright, then they might realize what_ they _stand to gain if gifted with offspring from him, too. Giving him a few months of training before they inevitably find out won’t change that—it’ll be the difference between a quick death at a High Lady’s hands and a slow one in captivity once they see what he can do._

My stomach had turned over at the implication. That I might be _stolen_ — and kept for—for… _breeding_. Surely…surely no High Lady would go so far. I had only caught glimpses of the others, only spoken outright to Zaneli and Elizabeth—and I knew that some of the others were terrible, like Jelamet, but surely even she wouldn’t dare, they wouldn’t, I had to believe that they _wouldn’t—_

 _If they were to do that_ , Jenna had countered _, none of the other High Ladies would stand with them.They would face the wrath of six courts bearing down on them. No one is that stupid_ , _not even my mother._

 _Elizabeth is that stupid_ , Ludociel had spat, and there was _hate_ in his voice. _And with that power of hers, she could potentially withstand even the wrath of all six. Imagine_ , he said, voice softening as he no doubt turned to Zaneli, quiet and beseeching _, a day might come when she does not return him. You hear the poisoned lies she whispers in his ear. There are other ways around it_ , he had added with no shortage of venom, sharp and sickly sweet and eager to kill. _We might not be able to deal with her, but there are some friends I made across the sea, those eager for her blood…_

 _We are_ not _assassins, and we will not risk killing a High Lady based on a hypothetical threat_ , Jenna had cut in savagely. _Elizabeth is what she is, but who would take her place_ — _they would figure it out, Zaneli, you know they would, and they would rain blood down on us for this transgression._

My blood went cold, and I could have sworn ice frosted my fingertips, that icy, glittering wrath resurfacing—not at the idea of whatever monsters served Elizabeth coming here, but…

 _Wings torn off, silver hair stained scarlet, smirk set in stone, eyes soul-dead._ The image swirled in my mind, and I gritted my teeth, squeezed my eyes shut. _Stop caring._

Jenna had gone on, her tone pleading, _Zaneli. Zan. Just let him train, let him master this before it masters_ him _—if the other High Ladies_ do _come for him, let him stand a chance…_

Silence fell as they let Zaneli consider, both their pieces said.

My feet began moving the moment I heard the first word out of his mouth, barely more than a growl. _No._

_As though she’d say anything different._

With each step up the stairs,  I heard  the rest, louder and clearer and echoing more harshly with every heartbeat. _We give them no reason to suspect he might have any abilities, which training will surely do. Don’t give me that look, Jenna._

Silence again, heavy as iron and just as stifling. Then a vicious snarl, and a shudder of  magic rocked the house.

Zaneli’s voice became low, deadly. _Do not push me on this_.

I didn’t want to know what was happening in that room, what she’d done to Jenna, what Jenna had even looked like to cause that pulse of untamed, unbound power.

I locked the door to my bedroom and did not bother to eat dinner at all.

* * *

 

Zaneli didn’t come to my door that night, didn’t seek me out, and I didn’t bother to stay awake for her. Though I could no longer hear them, I found myself wondering if they were still debating my future in Britannia and the threats against me ( _without me, they were deciding my path, my_ life _without me, every time without me)_. The sentries that reappeared outside the bedroom (more of them than before, the cage’s bars were growing tighter, tighter, _tighter)_ the following afternoon all but confirmed it.

_Drowning._

_I’m drowning_

I couldn’t even ask her to lower it again _;_ according to the sentries, Zaneli and Jenna had already locked themselves in her study, working on some plan or threat or problem that I was to hear nothing of. _Funny,_ I found myself thinking, wandering those garden paths I’d walked a thousand times this month alone, so many times that it was a miracle my footprints weren’t burned into the dirt. _Funny, how they keep their silences, how it’s spread to this place—_ soundless, the entire estate was _soundless_ after the courtiers had been sent away, and I had come to loathe it as I passed guard after guard, my footsteps the only noise as their eyes bored into my back _. Funny. Or ironic, I suppose._

Not even servants wandered the halls, having taken to remaining in their quarters unless ordered otherwise. There was me, and me alone, a ghost. I wondered if it was fear that kept them away, and of who—Zaneli, or _me?_ Had someone seen my episode yesterday, seen the claws, the handprints in the dining table? Was there someone like Elizabeth here, who could slip into minds? Maybe Ludociel, I realized with a feeling like horror. He had known about the powers, and I had never told him anything. Perhaps I’d given away more than I realized, or perhaps— _no._ Zaneli wouldn’t have told him, _no, of course not, she wouldn’t betray your trust, she wouldn’t._

Except Ludociel had said that Zaneli had prayed with him for forgiveness from the gods, from the Mother of Fae and the Cauldron that birthed the world. That she came to him, begging to be absolved of her sin, to pray for her temper to vanish and those she loved to be safe from her. Perhaps she had let it slip in her desperation for absolution. The only question was how long Ludociel had known.

Soft-soled, delicate shoes scuffed lightly on the pristine marble steps, sickeningly audible in the death-quiet of the house. _Too much silence._ Only a week ago, I had relished it, but now it only pulled the itch under my skin into waking again, made me restless. I needed to get out of this house, to _do_ something, see something, be part of this bigger world that I was not allowed to see. Perhaps the people of the nearby village didn’t trust me, didn’t want my help, but that was fine. I could do other things, _anything_ but sit here in this heavy silence.

Hunt.

I couldn’t fight as an archer, but I was good enough with a bow and arrow to hunt. I could go, I could ride just a _little_ bit off the estate grounds, snare an elk for supper or something. Yes, I could do that, and I would ask this time, break the silence, at least for a bit. I wouldn’t even ask her to remove the sentries.

Before I could turn to the study, though, to ask Zaneli if I could, if there was _any_ task she’d allow me to do, anything at all (ready to beg, if I had to), the study doors flung open and Zaneli and Jenna appeared, armed to the teeth and stalking toward the nearest exit with single-minded purpose, Ludociel nowhere to be found. “Where—” I started as they reached the foyer, reaching for Zaneli despite myself, despite knowing what she would say— _it’s not for you to worry about, Meliodas, everything’s fine, it’ll all be over soon._

Except she answered, her face a grim mask, lined with ancient power. “There’s activity on the western sea bordering my lands. I have to go.” The western border—the one closest to the channel between Erebus and Britannia. Elizabeth had been right, there was something happening and I hadn’t had the strength to follow through, but I couldn’t keep quiet now, I had to know, had to help, there had to be s _omething I could do._

“Can I come?” I burst out, unable to stop myself. “I—I want to help. I _can_ help.”

Zaneli stopped in her tracks, Jenna continuing past her with a poorly-hidden wince. Jade-green eyes met mine, wide and surprised, and I wondered for a moment if she’d say yes this time, trust me this time. “I’m sorry,” she breathed a moment later, wiping that small hope away and reaching for my hand. I stepped back, out of her grip before her fingers could graze mine. “It’s too dangerous, Meliodas.”

“I know how to remain hidden. I won’t do anything if you don’t want me too, just—take me with you, _please.”_

Her tone was still gentle, kind, but I could _feel_ the impatience start to rise as she took my hand and squeezed it, stepping forward where I’d stepped away. “I won’t risk our enemies getting their hands on you,” she murmured, and I wanted to s _cream—what enemies? You’ve told me nothing, how would I know, tell me_ something, _Zaneli,_ anything.

My gaze drifted over the top of her shoulder, to where Jenna stood on the gravel paths, framed in the afternoon sunlight. No horses this time—either they were winnowing, or they were running, faster without their steeds. But I could keep up, now, as High Fae. Maybe I could wait until they left, and—

Zaneli’s grip tightened painfully on my hand, snapping my attention back to her. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned, and there was _anger_ brimming in her voice—protectiveness, yes, but anger too, and I couldn’t help flinching. She didn’t notice, growling, “Don’t even _try_ to come after us.”

 _Fight it. Fight it. Fight it. Fight it._ “I can fight,” I pleaded, though it wasn’t entirely true—a talent for surviving dangerous situations ( _luck,_ some called it, and I supposed sometimes they were right) wasn’t the same as trained skill, wasn’t _enough_ for it. _“Please.”_

I’d never hated a word more.

She shook her head, crossing the foyer to the front doors. I followed her, words spilling from my lips unbidden in my desperation. “You’re a High Lady—there will always be some threat to you and yours, always some conflict or enemy or _excuse—”_ I watched her face darken, but barreled on— “that keeps me in here.”

She slowed to a stop just inside those massive oak doors, restored like the most precious of diamonds after Mael’s subordinates had trashed them. “You can barely sleep through the night—”

_“Neither can you.”_

“—you can barely handle being around other people—”

“You _promised,”_ I said, and I didn’t care that my voice cracked, that I was shaking, _begging_ for her to understand. “You swore to me that you would try to be better, that you would let me get out of the house. I _need_ to get out of here, Zaneli, _please.”_

There was a sigh, and _something_ roared within me, at the how exasperated she sounded, as though I was simply a child throwing a fit. “Have Theo and the rest of the sentries take you and Ludociel for a ride—”

“I don’t _want_ to go for a ride!” I splayed my arms wide, and _yeah,_ okay, now I sounded a little childish, but there was no way I could stop, not when I’d laid so much bare. “I don’t want to go for a ride or a picnic or pick wildflowers or _paint.”_ I spat it out, the word that had once been my greatest passion, my arms dropping to my sides as my fingers curled into shaking fists. “I want to _do_ something. Take me with you.”

The boy, the _child_ who needed to be protected, who craved stability and comfort and luxury…he had died Under-the-Mountain. _I_ had died, and there had been no one to protect me from those horrors, from the brutality of my own slow demise, from _Mael_ before my neck snapped. I would not, _could_ not yield that warrior that had awoken in me, the spirit that became a fighter instead of merely a survivor Under-the-Mountain. Zaneli had gotten her powers back, become protector and provider and guardian, dedicated to keeping what was hers safe and comfortable and happy.

But I was not the human boy who needed coddling and pampering, who wanted an easy life and the luxury of having every need taken care of. I didn’t know how to go back to craving those things. To being quiet, docile—the boy Zaneli fell in love with. The one that would’ve backed down as soon as her claws punched out.

Not this time.

I felt the words burn like fire as she said, clinically, sharply, as if aiming to hurt, “Even if I were to take that risk, your untrained abilities make you more a liability than anything else.”

 _Who decided not to train me? Who decided to keep me a liability so that none of those threats you believe are always lurking would take me? Who decided to disregard everything I say and leave these wounds open to fester?_ I felt the words burn on my tongue, but I swallowed them down, lifted my chin defiantly and said, “I’m coming whether you want me to or not.”

Those green eyes I so loved shuttered, hard as stone and empty of the female I loved. “No, you aren’t.” She strode through the door, claws slashing through the air at her sides, and was already at the bottom of the steps by the time I reached the threshold.

Where I slammed into an invisible wall.

I stumbled back, a gasp leaving me as I struggled to comprehend the presence of this strange shield, identical to the one I’d built that day in the study. I clawed through my own soul, my own heart, looking for a tether to that spark that had once protected me, wondering if my own power was working against me, but—there was no power emanating from me. Not a drop.

The wall, solid as steel, held when I pressed my hand against it, pushing with everything in me. Held as I gazed at Zaneli’s retreating back, fingers splayed as the sun glinted off the gold band she’d placed on my hand. “Zaneli,” I choked out, my voice barely a whisper—but she was already at the end of the front drive, walking toward those looming iron gates. Jenna was staring at me in horror from the foot of the stairs, her face pale, eyes of metal and flesh wide.

_“Zaneli.”_

She didn’t turn.

I curled my fingers into a fist, slammed them against the wall, which didn’t give in the slightest, no matter how hard I strained. And my own power—I didn’t even know how to use it, just barely knew how to summon that shield to protect _me._ I couldn’t dismantle it, and Zaneli knew that, knew that I had let her convince me not to learn those things for _her sake—_

“Don’t bother.” Jenna’s voice was soft, gentle, like she was talking to a cornered animal. I didn’t look at her, my gaze wholly on Zaneli as she cleared the gates and vanished— _winnowed,_ and never looked back. “She shielded the entire house around you. Others can go in and out, but not you—not until she lifts it.” She sounded sick, I realized distantly, but I could barely hear her through the roar in my ears.

Zaneli had locked me in here.

I hit the shield again. Again. Again and again and again, until my knuckles were bruised. _Nothing._

“Be patient, Meliodas,” Jenna tried—as she walked away, left me here, left me _trapped._ “Please. I’ll see what I can do, I’ll try again.”

 _Try again, try again, try again._ The words chased me as I bolted for the nearest window, not waiting to see her pass the gates and winnow away.

She’d locked me in. She’d sealed me up inside this house, she’d—

I found the nearest window in the foyer, shoving it open with a strangled cry. A cool breeze wafted in, bringing with it the smell of roses. I shoved my hand through it—only for my fingers to bounce off an invisible wall. Smooth, hard air pushed against my skin.

A vault, with me sealed inside.

Breathing suddenly became difficult, the air rushing out of the room.

I was trapped.

I was trapped inside this house. I might as well have been sealed Under-the-Mountain, I might as well have been back in that _cell_ again—

I backed away, stumbling, propelled by raw terror until I slammed into the heavy, oakwood table in the center of the foyer. Not one of the sentries—those there _“for your protection”_ —came to investigate, their gazes now fixed firmly on the walls, the floor, all closing in to stifle me utterly,

She’d trapped me here, she’d _locked me up._

I stopped seeing anything but walls of stone and cruel, laughing gold eyes, stopped hearing anything but wild, sickly sweet music and the snapping of bones, stopped feeling anything but pure, undiluted _fear—_ and then I stopped seeing, hearing, _feeling_ at all.

Darkness rose like the tsunamis of legend far above me, rose from beneath and pounded down, crushing and roaring and clawing at me, devouring me whole. It took every piece of me to keep from dissolving into incoherent _screaming,_ to keep from shattering completely as I sank onto the marble floor, curled as into as tiny a ball as possible, arms wrapped around myself as the walls closed in.

She’d trapped me, she’d trapped me, she’d trapped me, she’d _trapped me—_

I had to get out, I _had to,_ I’d barely escaped from another prison once before, walls of stone and wood and _cages, they were all cages,_ and this time, this time, this time, this time I would be trapped for good, a prize, a prisoner, a _pretty, tame mortal pet—_

 _Winnowing._ Elizabeth had explained it, had told me how High Fae could travel from one end of the world to the other; I could dissolve into nothing but wind and sky and re-form somewhere else, anywhere else, somewhere open and free with no thorns and walls to keep me locked inside. I clawed for my power, tried to force it to well up from my blood, my bones, for s _omething_ that might show me how to do it, but there was nothing, nothing, _nothing._ There was nothing and I had become _nothing,_ and I couldn’t ever get out— and there was a voice, shouting my name from a million miles away.

Derieri— _Derieri._ Friend, confidante, ally, _savemesavemesaveme—_

But I was _trapped,_ swallowed up by my own power, by shadows and flames, ice and wind, locked in a cocoon that melted the ring off my finger, that band of gold and emeralds that felt like binding thorns around my hand. The gold ore became part of the raging void, the emeralds falling away after it. I pulled the pure, wild _force_ around me like a blanket, buried myself in it as though it could keep the walls from crushing me to dust, maybe, _maybe_ buy me the _tiniest_ sip of air.

I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t get out, _I couldn’t get out—_

Slim, strong hands gripped me under the shoulders, gently unwound my arms from where they’d wrapped around my body as though I could hold myself together by force. I didn’t have the strength left to fight them off as one hand slipped under my knees, the other around my back, and I was lifted up.

I couldn’t see, didn’t _want_ to see the face that haunted my nightmares. Mael, come to take me away, to kill me at last. I almost welcomed it.

Then—

Words. Words, being spoken around me, between two women— _two females,_ some practiced instinct whispered to me. Two females, neither of them—neither of them could’ve been Mael, and their voices didn’t belong to his lieutenants. So then…

“Please—take care of him. He deserves—deserve more than what she’d give ‘im. More than what he could be here.” Derieri. _Friend, confidante, ally._

From right by my ear, the other replied (a voice like honey and amber and the warmth of cocoa, the raw vitality of the earth itself), her voice colder than I could’ve imagined, “Consider yourselves _exceedingly_ lucky that your… _High Lady_ was not here when we arrived. Your—her—precious sentries will have one hell of a headache when they wake up, but they’re alive. Be grateful.” Diane.

Diane held me—carried me.

The darkness around me flickered, gave way enough that I could breath, that I could see the garden door she walked toward, a door that would hold an invisible shield to _keep me in._ I opened my mouth—to tell her or to _scream,_ I wasn’t sure—but violet eyes peered down at me and her lips stretched in a mirthless grin. “Did you think that cursed shield would keep us from you? Elizabeth shattered it with half a thought.”

Elizabeth, Elizabeth was here—But I hadn’t seen her anywhere, and the thought brought the darkness crashing back down, suffocating me again. I clung to her, trying to breathe, to _think_ as her arms tightened gently, protectively around me. “You’re free,” she said, and her voice was tight with an emotion I couldn’t place. “You’re free.”

Not safe. Not protected.

_Free._

She carried me beyond the gardens, beyond the estate, into wild fields and down a hill, and into—into a _cave,_ into _darkness,_ into a _cage, no no no no NO—_

I must have started screaming and thrashing again, writhing in her arms, because I felt my hand slam against her shoulder as the noise echoed. She just held me and kept repeating it, over and over— “You’re out, you’re _free,”_ again and again and again as true darkness swallowed us—and barely a breath later, we emerged into _sunlight._ Sunlight and the scent of strawberries and grass (strawberries, grass, no roses, _no more roses)_. I wondered distantly if this was the Summer Court, before—

 Before a low, vicious, _familiar_ growl tore the air in two, ripping even the shadows of my own making apart. “I did everything by the book,” Diane said to the owner of that growl, that voice I remembered as sunny and cheery now flat as a hammered blade and hard as adamant.

I was passed from her arms to someone else’s, and I fought for breath again as panic tore at me, fought and gasped and sobbed for any trickle of air. Until Elizabeth said, “Then we’re done here.”

Wind tore at me, along with ancient, limitless darkness. But a sweeter, softer shade of night cradled me, caressed me, freeing my lungs and restoring feeling to my nerves, until I could _breathe—_ until it seduced me to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part One - House of Roses.


	10. Part Two - House of Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meliodas wakes up in a world both familiar and unfamiliar to him--and by his side is the ever-mysterious High Lady of the Night Court. Lucky for him, her intent seems to be to _help _him. And sometimes help means leading him to a place he never knew existed, a side of her he never knew existed.__
> 
>  
> 
> _  
> _It's the beginning of a new adventure._  
>  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Updates are gonna be s l o w following this, because school starts tomorrow for me! Wish me luck...and keep sending in reviews! With those, I'd never have written this much or kept going for these ten chapters.

I woke up to sunshine and summer breezes in the middle of winter, open space spiraling wide and free around me, nothing in view but snowcapped mountains and clear, blue-velvet skies.

Blue-velvet skies and Elizabeth, lounging in a plush-looking armchair across from the sofa I was sprawled across, her gaze fixed on those silver, snow-covered mountains. Her face was a solemn mask, no sign of her usual humor, her mischief and darkness and savagery. Just sorrow, almost, sorrow and loss on that beautiful face. If she had been a painting, I would’ve called her _Devastation._

I swallowed audibly, pushing myself into a sitting position—only to freeze as her head whipped toward me, that curtain of silver hair following like liquid moonlight. Her glittering blue eyes were cold, empty—without kindness, without love, without anything but frozen, unending rage. I waited for it to pour out onto me, to crush me, kill me, but I blinked— _she_ blinked, and it was gone, replaced with something like relief. Like exhaustion.

Pale sunlight crept across the moonstone floors of the palace, the sky turning pink as the sun began to slip over the horizon, crowning those mountains in gold. Dawn had come, though I recalled it being afternoon when Zaneli had—when she’d—

 _Don’t think._ “What happened?” My voice was hoarse, small and shivery, like I’d been screaming and sobbing in my sleep. The voice of someone broken so deeply that their nightmares brought them down even when they were too deep to hear them.

“You _were_ screaming.” Elizabeth’s voice was flat, the relief in her eyes seeming to evaporate, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about my shields—up, down, completely shattered, what did it matter anymore? “You also scared the shit out of everyone in that b— _Zaneli’s_ manor when you wrapped yourself in darkness and they couldn’t get through.”

That magic, _my_ magic—all that wild power that had coursed through me when I’d used it to keep out the walls—it had been uncontrollable, so strong it overwhelmed me and used me as more a conduit than a master. _Derieri—_ “Did I hurt anyone?”

Sympathy—there was sympathy in those blue eyes, the slightest warmth, and I wondered why she’d stopped bothering to hide it. To put up yet another mask. “Whatever you did, it was contained to you and you alone. You gave a few sentries a heart attack—” she hissed out the word s _entries_ like it was poison— “but nothing that wasn’t well-deserved.”

My head swam, and I sank back against the couch. Of course she’d know—of course Diane told her everything, of course she did, they did, even though Elizabeth had been nowhere— _nowhere_. “You weren’t—”

“It would’ve gotten real messy real _fast_ if I had been the one to walk into that house and take you.” She shrugged, though darkness still smoldered in her gaze, deadly rage hidden with a veil of ice. “Smashing that shield was fine, but Diane had to go into the Spring Court on her own two feet, take out the sentries through her own power, and carry you over the border to another court before I could take you here without bringing upon us certain…repercussions.”

“Repercussions?”

“Zaneli would’ve been within rights, had I taken you personally, to march her forces into my land to reclaim you.” Horror settled in my very bones at that—at Zaneli starting a war to _take me back,_ to claim me like some stolen treasure and whisk me back into that cage— _house._ Elizabeth’s face softened at the terror no doubt stealing onto my face, lips twitching upwards. “And of course, I find Zaneli’s presence boring at best and odious at worst, and an internal war would quite simply be a waste of time, so we did everything by the book.”

That was what Diane had meant before I’d dropped unconscious—that she’d done everything by the book.

I still had to go back, though—the bargain demanded it. Even if they rescued me, even if the idea of being locked up in there made me want to peel my skin off my bones and scream myself hoarse, I’d have to go back, and Zaneli—she’d— “When I—when I return…”

A wicked light crossed her face. “Your presence here isn’t part of our monthly requirement. Thus, you are under no obligation to.” That light dimmed, and one hand massaged her temple as she added, “Unless you wish to—in which case, I shall return you promptly with my best wishes and free you from the bargain.”

No— _no._  

 _Return or stay, return or stay, return or stay…_ The question settled in me, sank into my mind like a stone thrown into a bottomless well, kept sinking and sinking and sinking into…quiet. Nothingness.

There was nothing left in me but emptiness.

Nothing left to give—to Zaneli, or myself. Nothing of me left at all.

“She locked me in that house,” I rasped.

 Once more, shadows plumed from her back, the shadows of mighty, terrible wings spreading wide across the marble pillars and fluttering sapphire curtains. Her face, though, was the picture of calm as she said, “I know. I felt you—even through your shields, for once.”

I remembered her saying, last time we’d met (barely three weeks ago, but it felt like eons), that she had sensed me, and _her_ , and _terror._ I wondered what Elizabeth had sensed this time. “I have nowhere else to go.” A plea, a question, a statement— _don’t let me go back there._

She waved one elegant, pale hand, wing-shadows dissolving into nothingness. “Stay here however long you’d like. The library’s big enough to occupy you for several centuries—even Diane hasn’t gotten her way through them all yet, though she slacks off enough that she _could.”_ There it was—that amusement, the hint of a laugh.

“I—I need to go back at some point.”

“Say the word and it’s done.” She meant it, too, wholly and completely, even though the ire in her eyes said she hated the idea. She’d bring me back to the Spring Court the moment I asked, no questions asked. Back to silence and sentries and bitterness and rage and a life of doing nothing but planning parties and painting, dressing and dining and being the perfect docile consort.

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, crossed one leg over the other. She was wearing some kind of ankle-height boots, I realized dimly, instead of the usually sky-high heels—comfortable clothes instead of sweeping, swirling gowns, some kind of black longcoat and white blouse and brown pants. Far from the devastating, dark High Lady who’d rescued me from wicked faeries one Calanmai and destroyed me the next evening. “I made you an offer when you first came here: help me, and food, shelter, clothing…all of it is yours, whatever you need.”

I’d been a beggar in the past, had thrown aside pride and dignity to save a mother whose soul was broken and two younger brothers who barely considered me one of their own anymore. The thought of doing it now…

“Work for me,” Elizabeth said, and my gaze snapped back up to her. “I owe you, anyways. We’ll figure out where to go from there day by day, no matter how long it takes, if that’s what you need.”

My gaze drifted toward the mountains, toward the south, as if I could see all the way to that court of roses and eternal spring. Zaneli would be furious. She’d shred the manor apart, shred apart anything she could reach, and I still couldn’t hate her for it. But she’d—she’d locked me up. Either she’d so deeply misunderstood me, or she’d been so broken by what happened Under-the-Mountain that she didn’t _care,_ but…she’d locked me up when the one thing I’d asked for was freedom.

“I’m not going back.” And there they were—the words that sealed my fate. “Not until I figure things out.” _If I ever do._ My thumb brushed over the bare band of skin that her ring had rested on until—however long ago it was. Maybe Zaneli would come around, heal herself, that wide-open wound of rotten fear and complete control. Maybe I’d fix _myself_ somehow. I didn’t know.

But f I stayed in that manor, if I was locked up one more time…it would finish the breaking Mael had started.

Elizabeth summoned a mug of hot tea from nowhere and handed it to me, helped me wrap my stiff and shaking fingers around it. “Drink it,” she advised. “It’s not—” A grimace crossed her face. “It’s not the faerie wine. It won’t make you dance or forget, I—I swear. But the warmth will help.”

 _Faerie wine._ She’d made me drink that, Under-the-Mountain, during those sickening nightly revels that I still got flashes of. It had made me lose inhibitions, lose a will to fight, made me the tame and wild pet of the High Lady of the Night Court.

And yet…and yet it was tea in my hands, not wine, and I didn’t feel the urge to fling it in her face or to drop the mug. I trusted what she handed to me. I didn’t like her—much—but I trusted her. With this, at least. I took a sip, bowing my head as I did so, my bangs hiding me from the piercing lance of her gaze—a gaze that slid back to the mountains a moment later as I continued to drink. It was peppermint, and…licorice, I thought, and some other herb or spice—cinnamon, or maybe something sweeter, like vanilla. I let the warmth radiate through me, and my thoughts drift.

I wasn’t going back. Maybe I hadn’t…maybe I’d never even gotten to _come_ back, not really. Not from Under-the-Mountain.

When the mug was half-empty, I tried to pull words from my throat, from that empty well within, fishing for something, anything to keep the crushing silence from seeping any further between us. “The darkness, those shadows—is that part of the power _you_ gave me?”

“Most likely.”

I drained the rest of the mug in one gulp, finding myself relishing the burn, the pain searing through my and managing to clear some of the fog from my mind. “No wings?” Not that I needed them, if I had _that much power,_ but they had been beautiful and terrible and I found myself envying them.

“If you inherited Zaneli’s shapeshifting, perhaps you could build your own wings.”

A shiver went down my spine at the thought of touching _that_ gift, of the claws I’d grown that day with Jenna, the fangs that lined my mouth when I was cornered and frightened. “And—and the other High Ladies? Ice—that’s Winter, that comes from…” I wracked my brains for the name of the tiny, delicate-looking female I recalled from under the mountain, her strange levitation and golden eyes. “And that shield of hardened wind—who did that come from? What did the others give me? And that winnowing thing, is that tied to any one of you in particular?”

A soft chuckle came from her. “Slow down, Meliodas darling.” I bit my lip, but forced myself to hold her gaze as she tilted her head, considering. “Wind? That most likely came from the Day Court—Merlin. And you’re right, the ice does come from Elaine of the Winter Court.” _Elaine._ So that was her name. “Winnowing,” Elizabeth continued, “does not come from any particular court. It’s dependent on the person’s own reserve of power, and the training they have. As for your other gifts…I suppose you have to find that out for yourself.”

My shoulders slumped, words spilling from my lips from habit more than will. “I should’ve known your goodwill would wear off after a moment or so.”

Elizabeth barked a laugh at that, stretching her slim, deceptively dainty arms over her head, cracking her neck with a wince—as though there was a crick in it, as though she’d been sitting there through the night. “Rest a day or so, Meliodas. Then start trying to figure things out.” She got to her feet in a single, fluid movement, slipping her hands into her pockets. “I have business in another part of my lands, I’ll be back by the end of the week. Vervada and Risling will be here before the day is up.”

I’d slept—I didn’t know how long, but it felt like days. And yet I was still so, so tired, tired down to my very bones, to my torn and tattered heart. When I didn’t reply, Elizabeth gave me one of those signature razor-blade smirks and strode off between the marble pillars.

I could see, in that instant, how I would spend the next few days: alone, in silence, with nothing to do and only my dark, devious, twisted thoughts for company. Alone again, trapped on the mountain— _alone alone alone._ “Take me with you.”

Elizabeth stilled just before she could pass through two of those blue gossamer curtains and slowly, slowly turned back toward me. “You should rest.”

“I’ve rested enough.” _I’ve rested seven months, seven months since Under-the-Mountain, seven months of doing nothing and never healing and these thorns in my soul._ I set down the empty mug and got to my feet carefully, my head swimming. _When did I eat last?_ “Wherever you’re going, whatever you’re doing—take me along. I’ll stay out of trouble, I’ll be quiet, I won’t disturb you, just—please.” I choked on the last word, spat it out like poison. It had done nothing to sway Zaneli.

But it did something to Elizabeth.

She prowled toward me, crossing the distance between us in a matter of moments, her face a mask of steel. “If you come with me, there is no going back—not from this. You will not be allowed to speak of what you see to anyone outside of my court. If you do, people will die— _my people_ will die. So if you come, you will have to lie about it forever; if you go back to Spring, you _cannot_ tell anyone what you’ve seen, who you’ve met, all that you’ve witnessed. I will wipe it from your mind myself if you feel you cannot keep the secret. If you would rather not have that between you and your—your friends, then stay here.”

 _Stay here stay here stay here stay locked up tight a precious prize stay Meliodas stay forever…_ There was a wound in my chest, gaping and open and festering, its invisible blood spilling down my front without end. I wondered if I’d bleed out from it—if a broken soul could bleed out and die. Maybe it had already happened. “Take me with you,” I breathed. “I won’t tell anyone what I see, not even—them.” _Her._ I couldn’t bear to say her name.

Elizabeth studied me—and _smiled,_ her eyes bright. “We leave in ten minutes. If you want to freshen up, go ahead.” A surprisingly polite, gentle reminder that I probably looked like death warmed over. I _felt_ like it too.

But all I said was, “Where are we going?”

Elizabeth’s smile widened into a wicked grin. “To Liones—the City of Starlight.”

* * *

 

The moment I entered my room, the hollow quiet returned, washing away with it any questions I might have had about—about a city after Under-the-Mountain, after Mael. Everything had been destroyed by Mael. If there was a city in Britannia, even in the secretive Night Court, I would no doubt be visiting a ruin.

I slipped into the bath, scrubbing down as quickly as possible, before changing rapidly into the Night Court clothes laid for me on the cloud-soft bed—pale green and silver today. My motions were practiced, mechanical, each one a pointless attempt to banish the creeping thoughts at the corners of my mind, the thoughts about what had happened, what—what Zaneli had tried to do, what she had done, what _I_ had done and still might do.

By the time I returned to the main atrium, Elizabeth was leaning against a marble pillar and picking at her nails. She merely said, “That was fifteen minutes,” before extending her hand. There was nothing left in me but that roaring darkness, no glimmering ember of rage with which to try and taunt back as I took her hand and she winnowed us away.

Wind and night and stars swirled by as she winnowed us through the world, and the deceptive softness of her hand around the callouses tightened against my fading ones before—

Before sunlight, not starlight, greeted me. Squinting at the brightness, I found myself standing with what was unmistakably a foyer of someone’s house. Plush red carpet squished beneath my feet as I staggered away from her, gasping. There were warm, wood-paneled walls, artwork littering every one, a straight, wide oak staircase. Two rooms flanked us, a sitting room with a black marble fireplace and lots of elegant, comfortable, worn furniture with bookshelves lining every wall and a dining room—an informal dining room with a long, cherrywood table big enough for ten people, _tiny_ compared to the manor—on the right. Down a narrow corridor were a few more doors, ending in one that was most likely a kitchen. A townhouse.

I’d visited one once as a child, just five years old, when my mother and father had brought me along on a trip to the largest town in our territory. It had belonged to a client with wealth beyond mortal measure, and had smelled like expensive coffee and mothballs. A pretty place, but—empty. Cold, stuffy, and _formal._

This house…this house was a _home_ that had been lived in. A home that was loved, and cherished, and all the warmer and more beautiful for it.

And it was in a city.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meliodas catches a glimpse of a world he didn't believe could exist, and a court he can't bring himself to wonder about or meet. Not yet, anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uhhhhh…apparently I'm full of lies, here's another update, bye!
> 
> (just kidding. I guess when I say "slow updates", it means "sporadic updates". so there will be no schedule and random-ass bursts of chapters. I am so sorry)

Elizabeth’s smile was luminous as she said, “Welcome to my home.”

A whole city—a whole _world_ lay out there.

Morning sunlight streamed through the windows lining the front of the townhouse. The elegantly carved wood door in front of me was inset with square panes of fogged glass that peeked into a little mudroom and the actual front door beyond it, shut and solid against a city that was waking up with that beautiful dawn, against the crowds of people that lurked in those streets, the pretty townhouses I could see across the streets.

The thought of setting foot in that city, that rose-tinted world of—of _Liones_ , walking into those leering crowds, seeing the destruction Mael had undoubtedly left behind… A heavy weight pressed into my chest, and my shoulders hunched. I hadn’t been able to pull up the focus to ask until now, hadn’t given a moment of my time, a piece of my soul to consider that I might be making a mistake, but I had to ask, to know what I’d gotten into. “What is this place?”

Elizabeth leaned easily against the carved oak threshold that led into the sitting room, crossed her arms with a small smile. “This is my house. Well, I have two homes in the city—one for official business, and this one…this one’s for me and my family.”

I listened for servants, but heard nothing, no one except for the two of us. That was probably for the best, rather than having people staring, gawking at the broken creature that was once upon a time the savior of Britannia. But she’d—she’d mentioned the twins earlier, the two handmaidens who had tended to me before; she’d said they were coming up to that palace on the mountain. _Where…were they coming from here?_

“Vervada and Risling are here now,” she said, reading my glance down the hall behind us. “I sent them a message when we left the mountain, and they’re no longer heading up to the Palace of Snow.” _Palace of Snow—the mountain palace we came from?_ “Other than that, it’s gonna be just you and me.” She waggled her eyebrows, but there didn’t seem to be any smugness or desire behind it, just a mirthless humor.

I felt my chest tighten, shoulders locking up. It wasn’t that things had been any different in the palace—Palace of Snow, whatever —but this house was a thousand times smaller. There would be nowhere to run, no escaping her…except for the city outside. _Liones._ I didn’t know what a city was like; there were none left in our mortal territory, though some had sprung up on the mainland, full of art and learning and trade. Estarossa had once wanted to go to the continent with me, see the world, visit all those lands we’d heard stories about.

 I would never get that chance now.

Elizabeth opened her mouth, but two silhouettes appeared in the little mudroom just beyond the door, the pound of a fist on the door making me jolt and cutting her off. She cut a glare toward the figure whose fist was raised, and a bright, savage laugh filled the air. “Hurry up, you lazy ass,” drawled a dark, fiery female voice.

The two figures were different—very different, one tall and feminine and powerful, the other slim and delicate-looking. Exhaustion held my mind so tightly that I couldn’t bring myself to care that there were wings peeking over their shadowy forms. Elizabeth didn’t so much as blink toward the door as the first one began pounding again. “Two things, Meliodas darling.”

It grew _louder,_ if that was even possible, and the second figure murmured, “If you’re gonna pick a fight with her, at least do it after breakfast.” That voice was a little more ordinary—warm as sunlight dappling a forest floor, but sharp as steel.

“ _I_ wasn’t the one who hauled me out of bed just now to fly down here,” the first one huffed. “Busybody.”

I could’ve sworn a genuine smile pulled at Elizabeth’s mouth as she continued, “One, no one— _no one_ but Diane and I are able to winnow directly inside this house. It is warded, shielded, then warded some more. Only those I wish—and now, _you_ wish—may enter. You are safe here, and safe anywhere in this city, for that matter. The wards and walls of Liones have been guarded by magic and have not been breached in over five thousand years. No one with ill intent enters this city unless I allow it, so go where you wish, do what you wish, see who you wish, and do not fear. Also,” she added, blue eyes twinkling with mischief, “those two in the antechamber might not be on the list of people worth knowing if they keep banging on the door like children.”

Another pound, punctuated by the female voice saying, “You know we can hear you, you bitch.”

 _“Secondly,”_ Elizabeth went on, “in regard to the two assholes at my door, it’s up to you whether you want to meet them now or head upstairs like a sensible person, take a nap since you still look—excuse my candor—just a little bit awful, and then change into city-appropriate clothing while I beat the hell out of that one for talking to her High Lady like that.”

Her eyes—there was so much _light_ there. She seemed…younger, somehow, more mortal, more than the High Lady of Night and unlikely savior. So different from the creature of savagery and icy rage I’d seen when I’d awoken on that couch—when I decided I wasn’t going home. When I’d decided the Spring Court might not be my home.

That weight came to rest on me again, drowning me, and I took a step toward the staircase, too tired to claw my way to the surface and endure them. I’d slept for—gods, the Mother knew how long, and yet… “Please come get me when they’re gone.”

That immeasurable joy dimmed, and something like regret sparked in me as she opened her mouth, but a male voice—cheerful and bright like sunshine and gold, but with an edge of adamant—sounded behind the two winged figures. “You Illyrians are worse than kittens yowling for their mother for milk.” The knob twisted, and a rueful sigh came. “Elizabeth, really? Locking us out? We—well, _I_ wouldn’t have bothered the newcomer.”

 I didn’t bother listening to them bicker, ignored the female’s affronted gasp and the other male’s snort of amusement as I fought back that immense heaviness a bit longer, fought to make it up the stairs. Vervada and Risling were waiting for me at the top, both wincing in the direction of the front door, Risling subtly gesturing to me to hurry up. I could’ve kissed the redheaded twins for that normalcy—for not treating me like spun sugar and glass.

I could’ve, might’ve kissed Elizabeth, too, for waiting until I was halfway down that pale blue-painted hallway on the second floor to open the door. All I heard, their voices ringing in my head for a moment, was that female voice declaring, “Welcome back, you awful bitch,” followed by an indignant, _“Gelda!”_ from the first male voice, and a _“Whaaaat,”_ in response.

That sunny male voice interrupted their bickering, apologetic and hesitant—but steely. “Would you mind leaving for a bit? Elizabeth and I have matters to discuss—”

“As do I,” the first male voice snapped. “You know the rules, Arthur—whatever you say, you say in front of us all, unless it pertains to one of us personally.”

“Plus, we were here first,” the female drawled to him—Arthur? “Wait your turn, Bright-Eyes.”

On either side of me, the twins flinched, either from holding in laughter or some kind of fear, or both. _Definitely both,_ I decided as a snarl sliced through the house—a halfhearted, almost playful one, but a snarl all the same.

The upstairs hall was as lovely as the first level, soft-painted walls punctuated with chandeliers of swirled, glimmering multicolored glass, illuminating the handful of polished rowan doors on either side. I wondered absently if this was where Elizabeth had been when she’d left during the weeks of the bargain, which of these rooms—which part of her _home_ was hers and wholly hers—and then wondered about Diane as I heard her yawn amid the chaos below:

“Why is everyone here so _early?_ Elizabeth, you told me we were meeting tonight at the House for dinner.”

Below, Elizabeth grumbled—the High Lady of the Night Court _grumbled,_ like a chastened child— "Don’t look at me, I didn’t set up this party—and there _won’t_ be a party, so stop grinning. Just a massacre, if Gelda doesn’t shut her mouth.”

“We’re hungry,” the fire-voiced female—Gelda—complained plaintively. “Feed us. _Someone_ told me there’d be breakfast.”

“ _Someone,”_ the one the first male had called Arthur drawled, “told me you idiots were pathetic. Surprise surprise, rumor’s true.”

“We knew that a while ago,” scoffed Diane. “But _is_ there food?”

I heard the words, processed them distantly—and let them float into the shadowed recesses of my mind as Vervada and Risling opened a door to a sunlit, fire-warmed room. It faced a walled garden frosted gentle by winter in the back of the townhouse, the large windows peering over a slumbering fountain in the center, drained for the season. Everything in the bedroom was of rich honey-colored wood and soft cream, with touches of deep, rich browns. It felt, despite everything, almost human, friendly, welcoming.

And the bed—gods, it was massive, plush, layered with heavenly quilts and duvets of mocha and ivory to keep out the winter chill—looked the most welcoming of all.

I was exhausted, iron weighing down my heart, my bones, my ever-bleeding soul. But I wasn’t yet so far gone that I couldn’t ask questions, couldn’t at least pretend to care about my own welfare, my fate in this strange new place. “Who was that?” I managed as Risling shut the door behind us, Vervada heading for the small bathing room attached to the bedroom—white marble, a deep clawfoot tub, more sunny windows with garden views guarded by lines of holly buses.

“Elizabeth’s Inner Circle.” The answer came from Risling, already rummaging through the armoire in the bedroom. She seemed to cringe a bit as she said it, though there was a fond look in her eyes.

 _Inner Circle._ The ones I’d heard about that day in the storm, when I’d seen those wings again—the ones Elizabeth had flown off to meet. _Gelda,_ they’d said that name there, and the other… _King?_ It could’ve been a nickname for the other male, but there was no way to be sure. “I wasn’t aware that High Ladies kept things so casual.” Barging into her house, demanding breakfast, joking and squabbling like old friends…was that how Zaneli had done it before Mael? How the High Ladies of the other Courts did it? Maybe my perception of that formality was skewed by whatever changes Zaneli had made.

There was a snort from Vervada, who emerged from the bathing room with a hairbrush in hand. “ _They_ don’t. Elizabeth, however, does.” I let her attack the mess of my hair—past shoulder-length, now; I hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of letting anything sharp near my neck and it had grown rather long in the past months. The nightclothes Risling laid beside me were ivory, warm and trimmed in lace, and I turned the fabric between my fingers mindlessly.

I took in the clothes (fine fabrics, clean and fresh), then the room (beautiful and plush and warm), the winter garden and sleeping fountain (no signs of damage other than that done by the seasons), and Elizabeth’s earlier words finally clicked into place.

 _The wards and walls of this city have not been breached for five thousand years._ Mael…Mael was only in Britannia for fifty. Forty-nine and three-hundred-sixty-four days, if we were to get into specifics.

“How is this city here?” _Untouched. Unharmed. Beautiful._ “How did it survive—him?”

Vervada’s face tightened in the mirror, smoky gray eyes hardening as she glanced at her twin, who rose from a dresser drawer with a pair of fleece-lined slippers in hand. Risling’s eyes were as sharp as a hawk’s as she crossed the room to me, her soft, whispering voice now hard as diamond. “The High Lady is very powerful, and has been devoted to her people since the day she learned to fly.”

 _“How_ did it survive?” I pressed. A city—a lovely one, a _wholly untouched_ one if the sounds from my window, the gardens, the lights were any indication—lay all around me. A city Mael hadn’t been able to breach, perhaps didn’t even known about. A city of happy, smiling, ordinary people. _Safe—_ while the rest of the world had been allowed to crumble by the most powerful High Lady in history.

A kernel of anger began to flare in my chest as the twins exchanged looks again, some silent language they’d learned in the womb passing between them. Vervada set the brush down on the vanity. “It is not our story to tell.”

“She asked you not to—”

“No,” Risling interrupted, folding back the covers of the bed neatly. “The High Lady made no such demand of us, and she would never require such a thing.” There was absolute certainty in her voice, absolute faith in a female the world saw as a monster. “What she did to shield this city, however, is _her story._ We would be more comfortable if she told you, lest we get anything wrong.”

I stifled the urge to glare, to snap at them like a spoiled brat. _Fine._ It was fine—and fair reasoning. I might’ve stewed in the anger for a while longer, but Risling moved to shut the curtains—and my heartbeat stuttered, fear replacing my anger. “Please leave—leave them open.” I couldn’t bear it—not the darkness, the suffocating lack of light, the shadows and silence and fear. Not being sealed up in there again—not yet. Maybe never.

Risling merely nodded and left the curtains open, the twins making me promise to send word if I needed anything before they vanished into smoke. I didn’t have the energy to wonder if it was winnowing or something else as I slid, alone, into the bed, unable to process the smoothness of the sheets or the warmth cradling my body.

The crackling of the fire rang in my ears, the chirp of birds in the garden’s evergreens and holly bushes—nothing like the roses and sweet melodies I was used to. The melodies I might never hear again—might never be able to endure again, might never _want_ to hear at all. Melodies I was too broken to stand, the same way I could no longer paint, or smile, or laugh, or feel anything but hate and anger and fear and pain.

Maybe Mael had won after all.

And some strange, bitter part of me wondered if it was a fitting punishment for _her,_ my never returning. For all that _she_ had done to me. And that dark, bitter part of me reveled in it.

Sleep claimed me, swift and brutal and deep.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meliodas finds that confronting an entire, untouched city means confronting something inside him--and confronting the guardian of the city herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! A whole new chapter for you guys. They're gonna start getting pretty long from here on out, so brace yourselves!

I awoke four hours later.

It took me a moment to remember where I was, what had happened, all that had changed in the last sunrise alone. A chasm yawned within me, deep and black and endless, and with every tick-tick-tick of the little clock on the glossy writing desk in the corner, I was shoved back-back-back into that heavy, all-encompassing darkness. But—but the exhaustion was gone, at least. I was world-weary, tired, but no longer teetering on the knife-edge of madness, no longer seconds from sleeping forever.

I’d think about what happened at the Spring Court later. Tomorrow. Never.

Mercifully, the Inner Circle left before I’d finished dressing, their chatter dissipating into nothing as they left (winnowed, maybe?). Elizabeth was waiting for me by the front door—open, this time, into the wood-and-marble antechamber, which was open in turn to the street (the _world)_ beyond. She ran an eye over me, from the practical, comfy fur-lined fawn-brown boots to the mess of blond hair that fell past my shoulders, loose and unmanageable despite Vervada’s best efforts. Risling had bundled me into a soft, knee-length gray overcoat, a down-soft black sweater and warm navy pants beneath it. A scarf the same color as my shoes was wound around my neck, gloves tucked into the coat’s pockets for the cold weather.

“Those two certainly like to fuss,” Elizabeth said, though something about it was tight, strangely strained. “Though I thought they’d do more with your hair.”

“They tried,” I muttered, tugging on the gloves. _For a good ten minutes._ But it was simply too long and thick to pin up in a suitable style that wouldn't come off as too ornate or intricate or feminine, and they hadn’t had anything suitable on hand to tie it back with. It would get annoying, especially if the winds down here were as cold and swift as the ones I remembered from the mortal territory, but it was something I would simply have to learn to ignore.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, fishing a small box out of her pocket and passing it to me. “It’s a good thing I bought these, then, isn’t it?” When I just stood there, holding it and eyeing her suspiciously, she flapped a hand at me indignantly. “Oh, come on, it won’t bite. It’s not like I got you a box of bees or something.”

 _That would be…interesting._ But unlikely, I agreed reluctantly, since it wasn’t buzzing furiously _and_ bitterly cold outside. Slowly, I opened it—and blinked dumbly down at the contents.

Hair-ties. She’d gotten me seven different bands I could tie my hair back with, all different materials and colors—black velvet, gray silk, champagne satin, red lace (I nearly blushed at that one, the connotations of color and material infuriating), royal-blue wool, tawny suede, and silver chiffon. “I can’t—accept these.” They were too much; she’d already given me room and board, rescued me, offered me a job…there was so much she’d done for me, that I hadn’t asked for, but this was too much. Adding this present on top of everything else, it felt like going overboard. “It’s…” They were well made, strong despite how lovely and delicate they looked, and I ran my thumb over the gray one.

“Use them. They’re yours; I’ve got too many of my own and Diane will berate me about how none of them match. Her insistence on pigtails is…” She shrugged, offered me a lazy grin. “Then your hair won’t get all staticky from the coat and scarf. It’s easier than badgering you to get a haircut, and besides, the ponytail is _tres chic_ in Liones fashion.” Her hands came around mine, pulling the wool one from the box. “Turn around, would you? I want to show you my city, and you’ll stand out less looking less like a ragamuffin.”

It could’ve been a trick, an attempt to hurt me somehow, paralyze me and slip into my mind. That worry hadn’t vanished entirely before, and it reared its ugly head now, hissing at me and demanding to know if I _really_ trusted the High Lady of the Night Court, the monster who’d once served Mael—though not by choice. So I turned—turned slowly, and let her gather my hair into a loose ponytail, some strands left hanging to frame my face. Her movements were quick and practiced, impersonal, and I felt her tie it neatly before spinning me around again, stepping back. Her grin lit her face, bright and warm. “There you are—the picture of a gentleman, darling.” She stepped away before I could say anything, stalked toward the door left ajar and threw it wide open, sunlight pouring in across the threshold. Every step seemed toward it seemed to last forever, and yet, and yet, and _yet_ —

The weight on me seemed to dissipate for a moment as the city poured into _me_ in all its glory. Sunshine made soft from the mild winter weather bathed a small, neat front lawn of frost-covered grass, glinted off an intricate wrought-iron fence that rose to about my waist, empty flower beds ringing it and leading to a street of neat, smooth slate. High Fae wandered past in a thousand fashions from a thousand place—coats like mine for some, mortal fashions of layers and puffed skirts and sleeves and lace for others, some in riding leathers and others wearing some kind of winter variation of the clothes I’d worn during those weeks at the House of Wind. Every single one of them took their time, utterly at peace as they breathed in the brisk winter air, breezes tinged with pine and lemon. None of them glanced toward the house, or bowed toward Elizabeth—none of them appeared remotely surprised or worried that their own High Lady, the most _powerful_ High Lady, dwelled in a lovely marble town house with a green copper roof and pale chimney just like the rest of them.

In the distance, children shrieked with laughter—a sound I had not heard since coming into the Fae lands.

I stumbled to the front gate, bracing my hands against it to stay upright in the face of all this— _peace,_ this _calm,_ my shaking fingers unable to feel the bone-biting chill of the metal as I unlatched it. Three steps were all that I managed, all I could handle before I was left frozen at the sight at the end of that slate street.

It sloped down, down, down, revealing more pretty townhouses, more well-fed, content, unbothered people. At the very bottom lay a broad, winding river the same shade as Elizabeth’s eyes, the water a sparkling cobalt as it wound toward a vast expanse of water beyond it all. _The sea._ The city had been built atop rolling, steep hills that the river valley cut through, buildings made of shining white marble or warm sandstone. Ships, more than I had ever seen, even as a merchant’s son, bobbed gently in shimmering piers with sails of a thousand colors. Birds flew overhead, singing and chirping and shrieking.

No monsters. No shadows, no pain, no fear, no _despair—_

Pristine. Untouched. Safe.

_The wards and walls of Liones have not been breached in five thousand years._

Even at the height of Mael’s rule over Britannia, when the well of his power and reach had been bottomless, this place was untouched—untouched because of whatever Elizabeth had done, whatever she’d sold or given or bargained or cast over this place keeping it completely, utterly safe. Mael had never touched it, never tainted it. Not at all.

The rest of Britannia had _burned_ and been left to bleed out, to die and wither and burn into ash and dust, but Liones…

My fingers curled into fists.

Before the rage could truly hit, though, I sensed something looming and gazed down the other end of the street—at an imposing wall of flat-topped mountains of red stone, the same stone used for some of the structures I’d seen down by the sea. They curved around the northern end of Liones, like eternal guardians against all misfortune, until the river bent and flowed into them. In the north, different mountain reigned around the city, sharp peaks that reminded me of the water wraith’s teeth, turning the hills from the sea beyond from welcoming to formidable. The ones behind me, though…they were like sleeping giants, entities there to watch over this place, somehow _awake._

That feeling of power—undiluted, raw, untamable _power_ slithered over my skin again. I forced myself to ignore it.

“The middle peak,” Elizabeth called from behind me, and I whirled as she sauntered up, closing the gate behind her. She pointed to the largest of the plateaus, where holes— _windows_ littered its walls, built into the very mountain itself. Flying toward it on dark, powerful wings were two figures—the ones from earlier? “That’s my other home, the—”

“House of Wind,” I murmured before I could stop myself, before I could _think._ Rather than looking irritated at my eavesdropping, though, she looked mildly pleased as we watched the two figures swerve expertly on a wicked, swift current of air.

“Got it in one. We’ll be dining there tonight,” she added, and she sounded almost mournful. “And I’ll have to share you with all my dreadful, dreadful friends, who will no doubt turn you against me.”

I didn’t care about her dreadful, dreadful friends or where we were dining, didn’t care about anything but— “How?” _How is this place untouched, how did you survive, how is it safe and the rest of the world was left to burn, how, how, how—_

Her blue eyes darkened. “Luck.”

 _Luck._ “Yes, how _lucky_ for you,” I bit out, unable to keep venom from seeping into my voice— _no one else got your protection, only these people, how dare you, how dare you—_ “that the rest of Britannia was ravaged while your people, _your city_ remained safe.” The wind pulled at her silver hair, snarled it behind her, her face in shadow, unreadable. “Did you think,” I pressed, and my voice was as strained and rough as gravel, hewn from stone and shredded to pieces, “to extend that luck to anyone else, anywhere else? To the other places torn to shreds?”

“Other cities,” she said, and I wondered how she could be so calm, how she could look at me so placidly when she could’ve done so much more, was so much stronger than anyone else, “are known to the world, even to mortals. Liones, however, is known only to the Night Court. You won’t find it on any maps but those made here, known to anyone but me and mine—and so Mael and his beasts did not touch it, because he did not know of its existence. No one does, outside of Night.”

That blank map in her war room… “ _How?”_

“Spells and wards that my ruthless, ruthless ancestors used to try and preserve a single piece of goodness in the cold of this bitter world.”

“And when _Mael_ came—” I spat the name, hated the way it sounded on my tongue, hated the way it sounded at all— “you didn’t think to open this place as a refuge?”

The light in her eyes shuttered. “If you think for one moment that the bloodshed beyond these borders doesn’t haunt my every footstep, you’re wrong. When Mael came, I had to make difficult choices in the span of seconds—many of which I can never take back.”

I rolled my eyes, twisted away to scan the rolling hills, the twining river, the shimmering sea and all the smiling, happy people. “You won’t tell me about it, of course.” I had to know—had to know how she had managed to save this slice of peace and beauty, but I knew her well, knew people like her always held cards up their sleeves ‘til the last second.

“Perhaps. But now’s not the time for this conversation.”

Something in me froze over at the words. _Fine._ I’d heard that a thousand times in the Spring Court, too many to count. I couldn’t bring myself to care about it now, though, not with my head still spinning and everything in me so overwhelmed. I wouldn’t sit inside, though— _couldn’t_ bring myself to go back in and mourn and drown in sorrow and exhaustion. So I would leave, would venture out despite the agony, the size of this place (Cauldron, it was _enormous)_ —I would see what made it worth saving.

I jerked my chin toward the city, sloping down toward the river. “So what is there that was worth saving at the cost of everything else?”

When I turned to face her, her blue eyes were as ruthless as the wild winter sea, as icy as the grin that curled her lips. _“Everything.”_

* * *

 

Elizabeth wasn’t joking.

There was _everything_ to see in Liones, one of the first we saw being all manner of quaint tea shops with delicate tables of wrought silver and comfy little chairs scattered outside their bright and cheery displayed, the outdoor seating surely heated by some warming spell, all full of chatting, laughing High Fae—and otherworldly, ethereal, inhuman faeries. There were four main market squares, Elizabeth told me, called Palaces, two on this side—the southern side—of the Vanya River, two on the northern. In the hours that we wandered, I only made it to two of them, both magnificent squares of gleaming quartz flanked by stately pillars supported carved and painted buildings that guarded them and provided a covered walkway for beneath for shops built into the street level.

The first market Elizabeth led me through, the Palace of Thread and Jewels, sold any kind of garment and accessory imaginable—clothes, shoes, sparkling jewelry stores and vendors selling supplies for making all of the above. But nothing inside me seemed to awake at the shimmer of sunlight on fabrics that something within me knew were rarer than anything else I’d ever seen, or at the clothes displayed in broad, gleaming glass windows or the luster of a thousand metals and jewels nestled into velvet beds. Once, the artist in me would’ve yearned for a canvas here, but all I could feel was a hollow emptiness that chilled me to the bone despite my warm coat.

Elizabeth entered a few of the jewelry shops, claiming to be “looking for a present for a firedrake”, whatever that meant. I chose to wait outside every time without fail, lurking in the shadows of the covered walkways or huddling on benches, just another one of dozens of High Fae wandering around. No one knew me as Cursebreaker or Lord or Savior here, and I didn’t think I could handle telling anyone, introducing myself. No one looked twice at me, even as I walked at Elizabeth’s side. Perhaps they genuinely didn’t know, or perhaps it was a city thing—perhaps they didn’t care who walked among them.

The second market, the Palace of Bone and Salt, was one of the Twin Pillars: one on this side of the river, the other, called the Palace of Hoof and Leaf, shimmering just across from it. A bridge guarded by two shining moonstone pillars allowed shoppers to cross the river quickly and easily, lending its name to the two markets, both of which were piled full of vendors selling meat, produce, pre-prepared foods, livestock, foreign delicacies, spices—thousands upon thousands of spices, scents dredging up memories of those few brief years of my youth, when my parents were invincible and our wealth bottomless.

Elizabeth walked always a few paces away, hands shoved in her pockets and cheeks pink from the brisk breeze, offering to me anecdotes and information about the residents and their habits, a story of a little girl who got into her father’s spice stores and had mixed everything together in a big vat that had exploded and splattered the walls with expensive spice, children who tried on anything there possibly was to try in the Palace of Thread and Jewels and paraded around like courtiers and models, marriage proposals at certain spots and disastrous dates in others. Yes, she told me when I dared ask, most stores and houses used magic to keep them warm, especially the popular outdoor teahouses and gardens. I didn’t inquire further, letting my eyes wander instead—wander to Elizabeth, and the people around her.

No one avoided her here, or whispered or spat on her or stroked her, not like they had Under-the-Mountain, where she was an enemy they feared, a beast they hated, or an asset they coveted. No one spat those cruel words— _Mael’s Whore—_ and drew from her that bleeding broken-glass smile. No, no one here so much as scowled at her. Rather, the people that spotted her offered warm greetings and broad, genuine smiles, and she knew them all by name, her own smile bright and warm as they welcomed her back, that silvery laugh ringing out more than once.

But she grew quieter with every step as the afternoon continued, nearly silent as we finally paused at the edge of a brightly-colored pocket of the city, built atop a hill that flowed right to the edge of the Vanya. I peered into one of the storefronts, and my blood turned to frozen sludge in my veins, bones shivering and hollowing.

The cheery, brightly-painted door was cracked open to reveal _art—_ art and paints and brushes and little sculptures. Elizabeth followed my gaze, tilted her head sorrowfully at me, as though she understood, but her words remained light as she explained, “This—this is what Liones is famous for: the artists’ quarter. You’ll find a thousand galleries of everything imaginable, hundreds of supply stores, potters’ compounds, painting studios, sculpture gardens—if you can imagine it, it’s here. They call it Elysium—Liones’ very own paradise of art and wonder.” She jerked her chin at another hill, the bright colors and shining lights flowing over it as well. “That’s where the performing artists—musicians, dancers, actors, comedians—live. See that bit of gold gleaming near the top? That’s the most famous of the five theaters here in Liones. There are smaller ones, though, and my favorite amphitheater on the sea cliffs…”

She trailed off as she noticed my gaze drifting back to the rainbow of buildings ahead. High Fae and various species of faeries I’d never seen before and didn’t know the names of wandered the streets happily. I noticed the latter over the former, in all their different shapes—one with gray-skinned and broad-shouldered, with eyes like swirling amber and powerful builds, another with night-dark skin and veins and hair like liquid flames, like fire winding through the night as horns broke through the mess of hair, another with hair the palest green and flowers growing out of her skin. Some were bundled in heavy overcoats and scarves, while others work nothing but their scales and fur and talons, and no one looked twice at them. Every single one of them, however, was preoccupied—taking in the sights, shopping, artists splattered with clay and dust and paint and laughing, whole and bright.

Artists—I’d never called myself an artist, never thought that far or that grandly…and now, I supposed, I never would be. Where creativity and light and color once dwelled was now empty, cold and yawning, a filthy prison that burned away all ability to create. “I’m tired,” I managed to rasp.

I could feel those piercing blue eyes on me, didn’t care if my precious _shield_ was up or down, didn’t care if she could see into my head or not. She only shrugged, though, only offered a strange, placid little smile that I _hated_ for reasons I couldn’t place and said, “We can come back another day, if you like. It’s nearly dinnertime anyways, and Vervada and Risling will have my hide if we get back without giving them time to tidy you up a bit.” Sure enough, the sun was sinking below the horizon, staining the world in pink and gold, dark buildings lighting their windows like a strange, otherworldly garden.

I felt no desire to paint that either, even as people stopped to admire the approaching sunset—as if the people in this city, this _court_ had the freedom and safety to stop whenever they liked to enjoy the sights. As if they had never known otherwise, and barely knew that there were still others who could not and never would. It made me want to _scream,_ and I wanted to pull the slate out of the very ground and tear the pretty, pretty _paradise_ of Elysium to pieces, to unleash that ugly power roiling and snapping and snarling under my skin and show them what was done to me, shatter their piece like mine had been shatter, break them like I had been broken while they admired sunsets and painted and drank tea by the river.

_“Easy.”_

I whipped my head toward Elizabeth, breathing heavy, lips pulled back in a snarl. I couldn’t decide—whether I should keep wrestling this power down, or unleash it on her and burn it all down.

Her expression was unreadable as she murmured, “My people are blameless.”

In a heartbeat, my rage vanished, as if it was neve there at all—as if it missed a step on that sharp incline and came plummeting all the way back down to the core of the earth. Yes—yes, of course they were blameless, of course there was nothing they could’ve done or changed. But I didn’t feel like thinking more on it—or like thinking on anything at all. “I’m tired.”

She dipped her head, though for a second I thought I saw grief and rage and sorrow flash on her face, before turning from Elysium. “Tomorrow night, we’ll go for a walk. Liones is lovely during the day, but like most of my court…it comes alive after dark.”

I’d expected nothing less from the City of Starlight, but I had no words left to say it, no mind left with which to bring it up. All my thoughts were now on dinner—dinner with her, and her “Inner Circle” at the House of Wind. “Who,” I gathered enough focus to say, “is going to be at this dinner, precisely?”

Elizabeth turned and led us up a steep street, my thighs burning from a climb I could’ve made easily even as a mortal. Had I become so out of shape, so weak and useless that I couldn’t even manage a hill? “My Inner Circle,” she said, rather predictably. “I want you to meet them before you decide if this is a place you’d like to stay, to work with me and thus work with them. Diane, of course, you’ve already met, but the three others—”

Ah. “The ones from this afternoon.”

She nodded, lips twitching upward slightly. “Gelda, King, and Arthur.”

“Who are they?” She’d mentioned Illyrians—those bands or warriors she’d spoken to me about that day during my first week—but the owner of the second male voice (Arthur, probably, though I couldn’t be sure) hadn’t had wings. Another High Fae, perhaps?

“There are tiers within my circle,” she said matter-of-factly. “Arthur is my Second in command.”

A male—a male as the Second of the infamous Elizabeth, High Lady of a court of terrors and nightmares in a society where males were not allowed to hold leadership positions, were not considered enough for it. The surprise must have been written all over my face, because she chuckled as she elaborated, “Oh, yes. Diane is my Third, too—only a fool would think my Illyrian warriors were the apex predators in our circle.” Bright, cheery, mischievous _Diane—_ Third to the High Lady of the Night Court. A male and a female who didn’t immediately bow to their High Lady, standing in two of the highest positions in the Night Court. It went against everything I’d learned since I went over the wall between mortal territory and Fae lands, but here it was, staring me in the face—and forcing me to gaze back.

“You’ll see what I mean when you meet Arthur,” she added, drawing me out of my musings. “He looks like High Fae, but something different prowls beneath his skin.” She waved at a couple who passed us, both of them bowing their heads in greeting as their chatter floated through the air. “He might be older than this city and sweet as a cinnamon roll when he’s not snarking off at someone, but he’s vain and likes to hoard his baubles and belongings like a firedrake in a cave. So…be on your guard. You both have tempers when provoked, and I don’t want you to have any nasty surprises tonight.”

Some part of me didn’t want to know what manner of creature, exactly, he was, but the other part… “So, if we get into a brawl and I rip off his earrings, he’ll roast me and eat me?” It seemed a bit of a stretch for someone she described as being “sweet” and “snarky”, but if he was anything like me when angered…Estarossa had told me once that I was like a vengeful god when it came to retribution, though that had certainly changed. I wondered if Arthur was that way, too.

Elizabeth chuckled, genuine amusement lighting her face. “Definitely not. He’d do far, far worse things than that. The last time Arthur and Diane got into a proper fight, they left my favorite mountain retreat in cinders.” She almost seemed to pout at the memory, before shrugging. “For what it’s worth, I’m the most powerful High Lady in Britannia’s history, and the idea of getting into a fight with that male unnerves even _me.”_

The most powerful High Lady in history. I’d suspected it, hoped otherwise, but…

In the countless millennia that the Fae had existed here in Britannia, Elizabeth— _Elizabeth,_ with her razor-edged smirks and bladed sarcasm and sultry stares…she was the strongest. And yet Arthur was worse, and older than _five thousand years._

I waited for the fear to hit, waited for my body to shriek to find a way to get out of this dinner, to be able to hide in safety, but there was…nothing. Nothing woke up in me, no self-preservation, no life, no will. Just _that_ empty, yawning chasm in my soul, ever-widening, ever-bleeding, ever painful. Maybe—maybe it would be a mercy to be ended, to let go, to _die—_

A slender, strong hand gripped my face—gently enough so that it wasn’t painful, but hard enough to make me look at her, the livid fire in those blue eyes. “Don’t you _ever_ think that,” Elizabeth hissed, and shadows swirled and danced in her fury. _“Not for one damned moment.”_

The bond between us went taut, pulled from both ends in a tug-of-war I responded to instinctively, my remaining shields collapsing. And for a moment, a single moment, just as it had been after I’d died and seen the world through her eyes, I flashed from my body to hers—my eyes to her own.

And I—I had not realized how I looked.

My face was gaunt, cheeks that had always been childishly plump now hollow, my cheekbones sharp and green eyes almost a sickening, mossy gray, bruises dealt by the heavy fists of exhaustion lingering beneath my eyes. The full lips—a mouth I’d inherited from my father, that all my brothers had—were pale and wan, and my collarbone jutted out above the thick wool neckline of my sweater. I looked…I looked like rage and despair and loss had eaten me from the inside out, as though I was starving once more. Not for food, but…for joy, and life, and I felt emotion rise in her— _despairhopefearangertrustsympathysorrowhatel—_

Then I was back in my own skin, seething at her. “Was that a trick?”

 _“No.”_ Her voice shook, hoarse and tremulous as she lowered her hand from my face. “How did you get through it? My shield— _how—”_

I didn’t know what she was talking about; I hadn’t _done_ anything, just…slipped. I didn’t want to talk about it, _couldn’t_ , not here, not with her. Maybe not with anyone, and I wasn’t in the mood to find out. I stormed into a walk, my legs—thin and shivering, weak, pitiful, _useless—_ burning with every step up the steep hill.

My pace only slowed when she caught up to me with ease and grabbed my elbow, once again gentle, but strong enough to force me to pause. “How many other minds have you accidentally slipped into?”

Unbidden, my mind darted back to the Spring Court—to Jenna—

 _“Jenna?”_ She barked a laugh. “What a miserable place to be. Was it enlightening at all?”

A low snarl rippled from me before I could get a hold of myself, vicious and angry. _“Do not_ go into my head.”

“I wasn’t.” Her eyes flashed, fire and smoke and limitless darkness. “Your shields are down; you might as well have been shouting her name at me.” She tilted her head as I hauled the shields back up, arching an eyebrow. “Perhaps because you have my power…it’d make sense, of course, if the power came from _me,_ that my own shield would sometimes mistake your psyche for mine and let you slip through. Fascinating.”

I wanted to spit at her, shake her, scream until her ears bled just to make her skin crawl with annoyance the way mine did now. “Take your power back. I don’t want it.”

Her smile was sly, the blue of her eyes night-dark. “I won’t, and I can’t—the power is bound to your life now. The only way to get it back would be killing you, and as I quite enjoy the pleasure of your company, you can rest assured that is one of the things I will _never_ do.” We walked only a few more paces in silence before she continued, “but you need to be a bit more careful about keeping up those mental shields—especially now that you’ve seen Liones. If you ever go somewhere else, beyond these lands—and as an immortal, I can guarantee that you eventually will—and someone slipped into your mind and saw this place…” A muscle in her jaw quivered, her eyes hardening, and I tried to imagine the destruction I’d seen Mael wreak falling on this place.

I didn’t want it, even through that ember of rage. Perhaps it was for the best, that this place had remained peaceful and safe, that there was some slice of good in the world. Perhaps the knowledge was what had kept Elizabeth going for fifty years of being Mael’s lieutenant and plaything. Perhaps I needed something, somewhere like it, too. Somewhere I could walk without fear of stares or whispers, with quiet corners and crowds both, a place I knew _she_ could not reach me.

“We’re called _daemati,”_ Elizabeth murmured, drawing me out of my thoughts. “The people like us, who can walk into another person’s mind like we’re visiting a neighbor’s house. We’re rare, and the trait appears as the Mother wills it, but there are enough of us scattered throughout the world that many—mostly those in positions of power—train extensively against our particular skillset. If you were to ever encounter a _daemati_ without those shields up, Meliodas, they could take whatever they wanted. A more powerful one could make you their slave, make you do whatever they wanted, and you’d never even realize you were being controlled.” A chill ran down my spine at the idea—the way those claws had gripped my mind during that first reading lesson, the thought of someone else doing it and digging deeper utterly terrifying. “My lands are still an enigma to outsiders, which protects us, but would also make outsiders see you as a potential wealth of information.”

 _Daemati._ I had been able to—to cross through minds, subtly influence Jenna, who hadn’t even noticed I was there. Did that make me one of them? Would it be a crown, or another title for people to whisper as I passed? “In a potential war with Erebus, I’m guessing that the king’s armies wouldn’t even know to strike here?” I gestured to the city around us, the shining lights, the peace, the joy, the people—blameless people, a place I could maybe love someday, but Elizabeth was not blameless and those embers of rage were stoked higher and higher. “So, these people, the ones here and the ones who can’t shield their minds, they get your protection? They don’t have to fight while you let the world bleed out for them?”

I didn’t let her answer, increasing my pace as I stalked away. It was a childish move, a cheap and cowardly shot, but… What was left of my soul had become that distant sea, relentlessly churning, littered with storms and squalls and vortexes that drowned me wholly and tore away any sense of where the surface might be. I didn’t bother fighting that ocean anymore, let it toss me from anger and apathy and back again, and ignored the High Lady behind me.

Elizabeth kept a few paces away for the rest of the walk to her townhouse.

Some small, shivering part of me whispered that I could survive Mael, I could survive leaving Zaneli, I could survive being thrown into this strange, new body, but… That empty, gaping hole in my chest would be my destruction, would eat me alive just as Elizabeth had seen.

Even in the years I’d been one bad week away from starvation, the part of me had always held life and color and light. Maybe Mael had broken it. Maybe it was becoming a faerie that stole away the brightness inside me.

Or maybe I had broken it, when I shoved that ash-wood dagger into the hearts of two innocent faeries and their blood had warmed my hands.

* * *

 

“Hell no.”

I was atop the townhouse’s small rooftop garden, my hands shoved deep into the pockets of my overcoat to warm them against the bite in the winter night’s air. There was enough room for a few boxed, trimmed shrubs and a round iron table with two cushioned chairs—and me and Elizabeth. Around us, the city shimmered, the stars themselves hanging close enough to touch, glimmering a thousand colors I had no name for and could never paint even if I’d wanted to. The full moon made the marble of the buildings and bridges pulse with light, glowing as if lit from within. Music played, strings and flutes and gentle drums, and on either side of the Vanya, golden lights bobbed over riverside walkways dotted with cafes and shops, all open for the night, already packed.

Life—so full of life I could nearly taste it crackling on my tongue.

Clothed in rich blacks and violets accented with silver thread, Elizabeth crossed her arms—and rustled her massive wings as I snapped, _“No.”_

“The House of Wind is warded against people winnowing inside—exactly like this house. Except that one is warded even against High Ladies.” She shrugged as I narrowed my eyes at her. “Don’t ask me how or why or who did it, because I didn’t, and it was like that since before I was born. But the options are this—walk up ten thousand steps, which I _really_ would rather not do, Meliodas, or fly in.” Moonlight gilded the talon at the apex of each wing in shimmering silver. She gave me a slow, wicked grin I hadn’t seen all afternoon. “I promise I won’t drop you,” she added in a croon.

I frowned at the midnight-blue finery I’d selected—though it had long sleeves and the pants were lined in velvet, boots in fur, the light fabric did nothing against the wintery chill. I’d debated wearing that warm, cozy black sweater and thicker pants, but had opted for finery over comfort. I already regretted it, even with the overcoat. If her Inner Circle was anything like Zaneli’s, though…it would be better to wear the formal attire. I winced at the swath of swirling night between the roof and mountain palace. “The wind will rip this shirt right off.”

Her grin became feline.

“I’ll take the stairs,” I seethed as color rushed to my cheeks, whirling toward the door at the end of the roof, almost welcoming the anger within me. It would keep me going up all— _ten thousand steps,_ good Mother.

Elizabeth snapped out a wing, blocked my path. Smooth—the membrane was smooth and dark, with a hint of iridescence. I peeled back and shot her a glare. “Risling spent an hour on my hair.” It was an exaggeration, of course, but I had let her fuss over it while I sat in hollow silence, teasing the already-wild ends and braid it from my temples down to the length of it, my bangs and those two untamable strands staying loose. It did look nice and I didn’t want to make all her work for naught, but maybe staying inside, alone and quite…maybe it would be better than facing these people. Than interacting.

Elizabeth’s wing curved around me, gathering me to her side, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off her powerful body. “I promise I won’t let the wind destroy your hair. Or rip your clothes off, for that matter.” She raised a hand, almost as if she wanted to tug one of the loose strands framing my face, then lowered it.

“Couldn’t we just…” I swallowed. “If I’m to decide whether I want to work with you—with your Inner Circle, can’t we meet here?”

“They’re all up there already. Besides, the House of Wind has enough space that I won’t feel like chucking them all off the mountain. Or through a window, which, by the way, has happened. I’ll ask Gelda to tell you the story sometime.”

My throat tightened as my gaze drifted to the mountain. Sure enough, curving along the top of that central peak, floors of lights glinted, as if the mountain was crowned in diamonds and gold. Between me and that crown of light…a long, long stretch of open air. “You mean,” I said, “that this townhouse is too small, and their personalities are too big, and you’re worried I might lose it again.”

Her wing pushed me closer, warm against my shivering form. “So what if I am?”

“I’m not some broken doll.” Broken, yes, doll, no—even if this afternoon, the conversation we’d had, what I’d glimpsed of me through her eyes said otherwise. But I yielded another step, closer to her, that lovely face and faded smirk.

“I know you’re not—in fact, in time, you could probably kick their asses yourself. Still doesn’t mean that I’m going to throw you to the wolves. If you meant what you said about wanting to work from me to keep Erebus from these lands, to keep the wall between mortals and faeries intact, I want to you to meet my friends first. Decide on your own if it’s something you can handle.” She huffed, her breath forming a puff of condensation in the cold. “And since they will inevitably try to ambush you, I want this meeting to be on _my_ terms.”

“I didn’t know you had friends.” The anger, the sharpness—it was better than the emptiness, felt good, like fire on my tongue and power I had lost.

A cold smile. “He who does not ask shall never learn.” Elizabeth was close enough now that she slid an arm around my waist, both her wings encircling me. _A cage—_

The wings swept back, letting in air and night and starlight. Her arm tightened though, bracing for takeoff. _Gods help me._ “You say the word tonight,” she murmured, close enough that I could feel the words thrum through her body, “and we can come back here, no questions asked. And if you can’t stomach working with me, or them, then no questions asked on that either. We can find some other way for you to live here, be fulfilled, regardless of what I need. It’s your choice, Meliodas.”

I debated pushing her on it, insisting I stay, but what reason was there for it? What would I do here but sleep, and what good would it do me to avoid a meeting I most definitely should have before deciding what I was going to do, who to be? And _flying,_ the thing Elizabeth had told me she loved beyond all else…what would it be like? “Please don’t drop me. And please don’t—”

We shot into the sky, fast as a shooting star.

Before my scream—proud of it I was not, but it had been undeniably a scream—had finished echoing, the City of Starlight spread wide and bright beneath us like a bed of fallen stars. Elizabeth’s hand slid under my knees while the other wrapped around my back and ribs, and we soared up, up, up into the star-freckled night, into the dancing darkness and singing wind.

The city lights fell away until Liones was a rippling velvet blanket littered with jewels, until the music no longer reached even our pointed ears, and the only noise around us was the howling purr of the wind, the occasional flap of dark, powerful wings, and Elizabeth’s heartbeat in my ears. The air was chill, but no wind other then a gentle breeze brushed my face, even as we flew with exquisite, unmatched precision for the House of Wind. Elizabeth’s body was somehow both hard and soft against mine, lush curves covering iron muscle, like silk over steel, a force of nature crafted and honed for this—for flight. Even her scent reminded me of the wind, rain and salt and crackling lightning and something of citrus that I couldn’t quite name.

We swerved into an updraft, rising so fast that it was instinct to clutch at the black bodice of her less-formal-than-usual dress (not a gown, but a _dress_ , falling to just above the knee, the smooth skirt more indigo and violet than black). Her soft laughter tickled my ear, and I scowled as she purred, “I expected more screaming from you. I must not be trying hard enough.”

 _“Do not,”_ I hissed, focusing on the approaching diadem of lights in the ever-watching wall of the mountain. With the sky spiraling overhead and the lights shooting past below, up and down seemed to vanish, earth and air melding together—until we were sailing through a sea of stars. Something tight in my chest eased a fraction of its grip as black velvet and white diamonds surrounded us.

“When I was a girl,” Elizabeth whispered in my ear, her voice soft enough that it seemed to become part of the starscape around us, “I’d sneak out of the House of Wind by leaping out my window—and I’d fly and fly and fly all night, just making loops around the city, the river, the sea. Sometimes I still do.”

I felt something strange bubbling up in me—amusement. “Your parents must have been thrilled.”

“My mother never knew. Neither did my father, for that matter, though he would’ve understood. But my aunt…” She paused, and I felt the air rush out of her. “She was Illyrian—Father was too. Some nights, when she caught me right as I leaped out the window, she’d scold me…and then jump out herself to fly with me until dawn.”

“She sounds lovely,” I admitted.

“She was.” And those two words told me enough about her past, her loss that I didn’t pry.

A swooping maneuver had us rising higher, until we were in direct line with a broad balcony, gilded by the light of golden lanterns. At the far end, built into the mountain itself, two glass doors were already open, revealing a large but surprisingly _casual_ dining room carved from the stone itself and accented with rich, warm woods. Each chair seemed fashioned, I realized, to accommodate wings.

Elizabeth’s landing was as smooth as her takeoff, though an arm remained beneath my shoulders as my knees buckled at the adjustment. I shook off her touch and faced the city below us, seeking…something. I’d spent so much time hiding in trees during hunts that heights had lost their hold on me long ago. But the sprawl of the city—worse, the vast expanse of the shadowy sea… Maybe I was still a human fool, but I had not realized the size of the world. The size of Britannia, if a city this large could remain hidden from Mael, from the other courts.

Elizabeth was silent beside me for a moment, before she said, “Out with it.” I glanced toward her, raised an eyebrow as she clarified, “You say what’s on your mind—one thing. And I’ll say one too.” I shook my head and turned back to the city—I’d learned my lesson about expecting honesty from High Ladies.

But Elizabeth said, “I’m thinking that I spent fifty years locked Under-the-Mountain, and that I’d sometimes let myself dream of this place, but I never expected to see it again. I’m thinking that I wish I had been the one who slaughtered _him._ I’m thinking that if war comes, it might be a long while yet before I get to have a night like this.” She slid her eyes to me, waiting.”

I didn’t bother asking again how she had managed to keep this place from him, not when she would only refuse to answer. So I said, “Do you think war will come that soon?”

She tsked at me, shaking her head. “Ah-ah-ah, Meliodas, this was a no-questions-asked invitation. I told you…” There was a pause as she counted them. “Three things. Tell me one.”

I stared toward that open, terrifying, magnificent world, the shining city and the restless sea and the dry winter night. Maybe it was some shred of courage, or recklessness, or the feeling of being so high about everything that no one but Elizabeth and the wind could possibly hear it, but I said, “I’m thinking that I must have been a fool in love to be shown so little of the Spring Court. I’m thinking there’s a great deal of that territory I was never allowed to see or hear about and maybe would have lived in ignorance forever like some—some _pet._ I’m thinking…” Words were coming difficult, choked as I forced myself to say the traitorous ones crowding my mind. “I’m thinking that I was a lonely, hopeless person and I might have fallen in love with the first thing that showed me a hint of kindness and safety. And I’m thinking that maybe she _knew_ that—maybe not actively, but maybe _she_ wanted to be that person for someone. And maybe that worked for who I was before. Maybe it doesn’t work for who—what I am now.”

There.

The words were out there, blasphemous and cruel, hateful and selfish and ungrateful for everything Zaneli had done for me, for my family—

The thought of her name clanged through me, shocked me like being doused in cold water. Only yesterday afternoon, I had been there. Just yesterday, she had dismissed me like an animal, locked me up and expected me to wait for her, dutiful and obedient, she’d _caged_ me. No—no, I wouldn’t think about it. Not yet.

Elizabeth only said, “That was five. Looks like I owe you two thoughts.” She glanced over her shoulder, behind us. “Later.”

Because the two winged figures from earlier were standing in the doorway, grinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Thoughts, comments, theories? Please leave them (and any reviews) below!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner with the Inner Circle, Meliodas finds out, is an interesting affair, full of interesting people. _Powerful _, interesting people.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter I've written yet! The rest of the cast shows up and boy, is it wild.

They both had wings like Elizabeth’s, powerful and brutal and holding within them some shadowed, terrible beauty, both of them covered in plated, dark leather that looked like scales, but that was where the similarities began and ended.

The female’s grin was a dark, mischievous thing—not quite the wicked, suggestive bloodstained razor-blade of Elizabeth’s (though I couldn’t in good conscience call it _not_ suggestive), but rather one that smoldered like embers about to leap into a conflagration. She was tall, with white-blonde hair braided loosely over her shoulders and eyes a brilliant scarlet, a flash of fangs visible in her smile as she tilted her head. Power radiated off of her, muscle rippling under fair skin, lining her curves, the wicked edge of a blade secured in a scabbard strapped down her spine.

The male was floating— _floating_ above the ground, levitating a few inches off of it as his smile turned more rueful, though there was an edge of glee that sent my nerves on edge. He looked…young, and boyish, with short, messy brown hair and eyes like drops of amber, freckles smattering a round face. The opposite of the female beside him, he was shorter than both her and Elizabeth (though still taller than me, not that that was a hard feat to manage) and delicately-built, though with that same aura of power.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered with the formal attire after all.

Elizabeth sauntered over to them without looking back at me, the affectionate nudge at each of their shoulders both a signal to me, and a question. One word, she’d said, and I could go back. Just say it, and she’d do it. And I thought about it, for a moment—about shaking my head, heading back through the glass doors and to that balcony, hiding in that townhouse, away from these strange, impossibly powerful beings.

Curiosity, for once, overpowered my fear and spurred me just a step closer.

The female chuckled, her red eyes shadowed as mischief sparked in them. “Come on, Meliodas. We don’t bite.” Her grin widened, and those wicked fangs glinted in the brilliant lights of the palace. “Unless you ask us to.” I halted, startled, before moving forward again, closer to them—those bright eyes, red and blue and amber, all three pairs watching to see what I would do next as we made our way to that dining room I’d glimpsed from afar.

Delight seemed to glow in Elizabeth’s gaze as I fell in step beside her, and she crooned, “The last I heard, Gelda, no one has ever taken you up on that offer.”

A snort came from the male. “Probably because she’d rip a hole in them with those monster teeth.”

“ _I’m_ not the blood-drinker here, King.”

I listened, dazed, as the three of them bickered back and forth, like—like old friends. _Friends,_ not acquaintances or allies, but friends, with an air of ease around each other that I hadn’t seen in the Spring Court. And then as we stepped into the light of the dining hall, I found myself wondering why no one had taken up on that offer of Gelda’s; if Elizabeth’s father and aunt has also been Illyrian, then its people were certainly blessed with unnatural good looks. None of the trio looked alike, but all of them were inhumanly gorgeous, with a beauty unmatched by any I’d seen so far.

Though I did wish that they would stop staring at me.

As if she’d heard my thoughts, Gelda’s eyes flicked to Elizabeth, surveying her up and down. “So fancy tonight, sister. And you made poor Meliodas dress up, too?” She tsked at Elizabeth, wagging her finger almost crossly. There was something different about her—as though her beauty was one carved from fire and fury and the wildness of nature and the trappings of civilization were simply a new skin for the beast to wear. “Not that you don’t look stunning, of course,” she added, wiggling her fingers at me in a little wave as she waggled her eyebrows. I was too surprised to do anything but stare.

“Ignore her,” the male muttered to me from my left, making me jolt. “She flirts with anything with a beating heart and loves to pick fights people regardless of their feelings.” My gaze shifted to him as his lips curved into a smaller, more genuine smile. This person looked almost like the classical version of the Fae—delicate and lovely, but stronger than any human, both innocent and manipulative, capricious and solemn. Metal seemed to hum in his presence as he passed along with the rows of daggers strapped along his belt and to his thighs, a slight chill emanating from his veins, but his smile was still luminous, hiding whatever he might truly feel—the knife in the dark to Gelda’s flaming broadsword and the sweeping warhammer that was Diane. Or the _spear_ in the dark, judging by the weapon hovering at his side, the handle of it carved with a line of golden runes I’d never seen before.

“This,” Elizabeth said, “is King, also known as Harlequin—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“—also known as my spymaster, who thinks he’s better than everyone.” _Spymaster._ No wonder the smile felt so much like a mask, those guileless eyes like a trick. Instinct made me check that my mental wards were still firmly in place—just in case.

King shrugged, grinned widely at me as he extended a hand. “Welcome to the Night Court, Meliodas.” That hand—unblemished, delicate, but the edges of rippling burn scars disappeared into the leather plates of his armor. The wounds must have been excruciating, especially if even the immortal blood of the Fae had not been able to heal them wholly. Most of that hand, though, was covered by his armor, held in place by a loop around his middle finger. Not to hide those scars, I realized, but to hold in place the large, mesmerizing blue stone embedded in the back of the gauntlet, a matching one on his other hand. Two crimson stones adorned Gelda’s gauntlets, their color like the heart of a wildfire.

I took King’s hand as his fingers squeezed mine. His skin was as cold as ice.

The word Gelda had used a moment ago caught at my wandering thoughts before I could ponder the Illyrian spymaster too deeply, releasing his hand and trying not to look too eager to step back to Elizabeth’s side. “You three…you’re siblings?” Gelda had called her sister, and she’d mentioned someone, I think, once upon a time—her mother, father, aunt, and a sibling…was this the sister she’d spoken of Under-the-Mountain? None of them looked anything alike, not even in the way that people who came from the same place did.

Elizabeth’s grin was natural, easy, _real_ as she clarified, “Siblings in the sense that all bastards are family of a sort.”

So they were a family of—of choice, not of blood, and yet their ties seemed stronger than mine to my own siblings. “King’s the spymaster,” I murmured, trying to work out what felt strange, what surprised me here. “Elizabeth is the High Lady…” _Diane is the Third, that Arthur person the Second…_ My gazed flicked to Gelda. “What—what exactly do you do?”

She shrugged easily, tucking her wings in tighter. “I command Elizabeth’s armies.” As if that sort of position was something to be shrugged off. As if I could shrug off the fact that Elizabeth—the clever, prideful female standing beside me in a dark cocktail dress, looking more like a partygoer than a wielder of immeasurable power, the one who teased me and mocked me and egged me on and saved me when no one else would—had entire _armies_ at her beck-and-call.

I shifted warily, unsteady on my feet as I moved closer to Elizabeth as inconspicuously as possible. Gelda’s scarlet eyes tracked the movement, her mouth twitching to the side as her brow furrowed, and I honestly thought she was about to give me her professional opinion on my stance and how such a shift would make me unsteady against an opponent—warriors, all of them, I was surrounded by warriors and if they turned on me I would _die—_ but King cut in before she could say a word. “Gelda also excels at pissing everyone off, especially amongst our friends. So from one friend of Elizabeth to another…good luck.”

A friend of Elizabeth—not Cursebreaker, not savior of their land, not murderer, not Zaneli’s groom, not human-faerie- _thing._ Maybe they didn’t know—

But Gelda nudged her bastard—brother—whatever they were to each other—out of the way, King’s wings flaring out as he yelped and caught his balance back. “How the hell,” she demanded, her eyes gleaming, “did you manage to make a _bone ladder_ in the Middengard Wyrm’s lair when you look like your own bones could snap at any moment?

 _Teeth, snarling teeth, a serpent of a thousand feet, dry scales and a garden of bones, trapped in the trenches— "You’re a hunter, aren’t you, little human? Then_ hunt—” _–running, fighting, survive to fight another day, survive, survive, SURVIVE—_

I drew in a sharp breath, forced the tension from my body. _That answers that question._ As well as another one that had been prodding at my mind for a while, wondering if she had been Under-the-Mountain herself. Apparently not, but that begged the question of where she’d been instead. Perhaps here, in this city—with these people. Safeguarded by those warded walls. Coddled by full bellies and happy city-dwellers and no fear.

I met Gelda’s scarlet gaze, if only because having Elizabeth step in to defuse the situation might have made me crumble just enough to break before them. Maybe it made me cruel and vicious as an adder, just as poisonous and stealthy, and maybe I relished that cruelty and poison as I snapped, “How the hell did _you_ manage to survive this long without anyone killing you?”

Gelda threw back her head and _laughed,_ a full, rich sound that bounced off the ruddy stones of the House. King looked approving, the knives strapped to his sides seeming to liquify and swirl around his wrists before snapping back into place, now in the shape of a set of metal cuffs. Strange—strange, these two Illyrians, one a raging wildfire, the other forged of cold steel. I tried not to stare and looked toward Elizabeth, hoping for an explanation about her spymaster’s bizarre gifts.

Elizabeth’s face…it was blank, almost amused, except for those blue eyes—wary, assessing blue eyes, like she was taking the measure of something. I almost demanded what the hell she was looking at, until Diane breezed in with a declaration of, “If Gelda’s howling, I hope it means Meliodas told her to shut that damned mouth.”

Both Illyrians turned toward her, Gelda bracing her feet slightly apart on the floor in a fighting stance I knew all too well. It was almost enough to distract me from noticing King as a dusting of pink coated his cheeks, amber gaze sliding over Diane’s body: a flowing gown of mint-colored chiffon accented with gold cuffs, with combs fastened like gilded leaves sweeping back waves of rich brown hair, unbound for once. That look—it was of someone utterly, hopelessly in love with someone, to the point where even the best actor could not hide it fully. It was a look I’d seen on—on _her_ what felt like a long, long time ago, before I became High Fae.

The spear spun in his hand and King’s eyes snapped to mine. I schooled my face into bland innocence, trying to beat down the curiosity that had sparked inside me.

“I don’t know why I ever forget you two are related,” Gelda grumbled to Diane, elbowing Elizabeth, who rolled her eyes. “You two and your clothes.”

Diane swept the Illyrian general a mocking bow, but I tried not to slump with relief at the sight of the fine clothes. At least I wouldn’t look overdressed now. “I wanted to impress Meliodas. You could have at least bothered to do something with your hair, rather than flying up here looking like you just got back from running drills at the war-camps.”

“Unlike some people,” Gelda said, proving my suspicions correct about that fighting stance, “I have better things to do with my time than sit in front of the mirror for hours.”

“Of _course,”_ Diane scoffed, tossing her hair over her shoulders, “since stalking the streets of Liones like an overgrown bat—”

“ _Ahem,_ you two—we have company.” King’s warning was calm, steady and soft, but those wings spread wide to herd both of them along to the dining room. “And we promised—”

Diane patted King on the shoulder, dodging his outstretched wing. “Relax, Harlequin—no fighting tonight. We promised Elizabeth.” The chill in the air seemed to vanish entirely as King reddened and ducked his head, those wings curling inwards as if to shield him from that mercilessly beautiful grin. Diane didn’t seem to notice, though, slinging an arm around my shoulders. I had enough dignity left not to look to Elizabeth for confirmation that she was safe to be around, to not look like a deer with an arrow aimed at its neck. “Mel, you can come sit with me while they drink themselves stupid.”

“Oh, like _you_ don’t get into the expensive wine every afternoon,” Gelda called, though she seemed perfectly content to stay with the other Illyrian and walk with Elizabeth. Diane gave her a vulgar gesture, steering me away as we headed into the warmth and red stone of the dining room, still chattering on brightly:

“’Course, if you’d rather drink, you can—Elizabeth does have quite the selection of wines and ales, and a thousand things to mix them with, fruits and spices and all sorts—but I want you all to myself before Arthur sweeps in and hogs you for the night.” I opened my mouth to ask her about Arthur— _the High Lady’s Second, older than the city, powerful and dangerous—_ but the interior doors swept open on the dining room, revealing the shadowed, crimson halls of the mountain beyond.

Maybe—maybe part of me remained mortal, because even though the broad-shouldered, smiling man before me _looked_ like High Fae…just as Elizabeth had warned me, every instinct was roaring to run. To _hide._

He was taller than I was by at least a head, with wild, untamable ginger hair like a lion’s mane, a single strand falling in his face. His skin was tan and smooth, lined with muscle, and his face—handsome, undeniably, but young and fresh-faced and bright. He looked almost—younger than me. Like Zeldris’s age, except for his eyes.

Arthur’s eyes…

Though Diane’s were close in color, his lilac eyes were unlike anything I’d ever seen, a glimpse into the creature I knew in my bones wasn’t High Fae. Or hadn’t been born that way.

Because within those lilac eyes, a fog of gold swirled—like smoke under glass.

He _looked_ like any of them, dressed somewhere between formal and casual in pants and a top like I’d worn at that other mountain-palace, the one of moonstone and marble and diamond. The rich reds and bronzes offset his golden skin and bright hair, illuminated his smile—inhumanly, impossibly beautiful, just like the rest of them. But the power radiating from him was like anything I’d ever faced before, the only one who rivaled it in the room standing…standing behind me.

Diane groaned, breaking the uneasy, electric silence, and slumped into a chair at the end of the table, pouring herself a glass of wine. Gelda took a seat across from her, wiggling her fingers for the wine bottle. Elizabeth and King just stood there, though, watching as the male approached me, then halted three feet away. Those terrifying eyes swept past me, before landing on Elizabeth, and full lips parted in a delighted grin.

“Your taste remains excellent, High Lady. Thank you.” That voice—sunny and warm, but with that edge beneath it. Diane was a warhammer, Gelda a broadsword, King a spear…Arthur was like some kind of shining blade that swept down all opposition without blinking twice at it. Elegant musician’s fingers grazed a bronze-and-pearl brooch pinned near the collar of his top, and I realized that he, like I had in the Spring Court, wore earrings and bracelets and even a necklace round his throat, all lovely and no doubt expensive.

So this was who she’d bought the jewelry for—the jewelry I was to never, under any circumstances, try to steal. I studied Elizabeth and Arthur, realizing with a start that Arthur was actually _taller_ than the High Lady, trying to read what bond might lay between them, but Elizabeth waved a hand and dipped her head. “It suits you, Arthur.”

He tilted his head, smile growing. “Everything suits me,” he said, and those horrible, beautiful eyes met my own once more—like leashed lightning, a thunderstorm in a cage. He took a step closer, inhaling slowly as if tasting the air, and despite all the terrors I’d faced, I’d never felt meeker. But I managed to hold my chin up—I didn’t know why, or how, but I did.

Arthur said, “So there are two of us now.”

My eyebrows scrunched closer together in confusion.

Arthur’s smile pulled into a grin, revealing sharp white teeth. “We who were born something else—and found ourselves trapped in new, strange bodies.”

I decided I _really_ didn’t want to know what he’d been before—but before I could excuse myself to go sit by Diane, his face softened into something bright and warm and almost human, and he chirped, “Welcome to the family!” before trotting off to claim the seat beside Gelda. I stared after him as he slipped into the seat, already chatting with Gelda and King as the latter sat on his other side.

“I told you.” Elizabeth’s voice echoed in my ear as she passed me by for the seat across from King. “Terrifying, but sweet as cinnamon sugar.”

Sweet as cinnamon sugar indeed. I settled between Elizabeth and Diane carefully as Diane snatched the wine bottle back from Gelda and filled the glass in front of me. It was white wine, fizzing slightly, and I swallowed as I realized that I had barely drunk anything all day. Whether it there was etiquette to follow was unclear, though, as Diane had already started sipping hers, while King seemed inclined to wait.

“There is a third one of us, you know.” Arthur’s unsettling eyes landed on me again, before flicking to Elizabeth. “I don’t think you’ve heard from Gilthunder in…centuries, though. That’s…interesting.”

I was starting to hate that word—and wasn’t sure whether to hug Gelda or pray for her as she rolled her eyes and grumbled, “Get to the point, Arthur, I’m hungry.”

Diane choked on her wine. Arthur slid his attention to the warrior to his right, King monitoring the two of them very, very carefully. “No one warming your bed right now, Gelda, darling? It must be _so hard_ to be an Illyrian and have no thoughts in your head save for those about your favorite parts. Does the food help?”

Terrifying one second, sweet and friendly the next, and snarking off at the next possible opportunity. Something told me that this one would be impossible to figure out—that all of them would be. Gelda just grinned lazily, irreverent of the wellspring of power before her. “You know I’m always happy to tangle in the sheets with you, Arthur. I know how much you love Illyrian—”

 _“Gilthunder,”_ Elizabeth interrupted swiftly as Arthur’s smile turned serpentine, “and Margaret are doing well, as far as I’ve heard. And what, exactly, is interesting?”

Arthur tilted his head to the side thoughtfully, gaze intense as he appraised me. I tried not to shrink from the overwhelming power, the strange smoke swirling there. “Only once before was a human Made into an immortal. I just thought it was _interesting_ that it should happen again just as all the ancient players have returned to the stage.” His gaze became thoughtful, less overwhelming. “Still, Gil was gifted long life—not an entirely new body. But you…” Again with that long, slow inhale, and surprise lit his eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to care what he was surprised about. I was tired already—of being assessed, evaluated, tested to see if I was worthy of whatever it was they kept watching me for. “Your blood, your veins—right down to the _bones,_ you were Made. A mortal soul in an immortal body.”

“I’m hungry too,” Diane announced loudly, nudging me with a thigh as Arthur leaned back with a huff, looking more exasperated than truly annoyed. She snapped a finger, and plates piled high with roast beef, potatoes, greens, and buttery-smelling bread appeared. A simple, hearty meal—elegantly served, but not formal at all. Perhaps the sweater and pants from earlier wouldn’t have been out of place after all. “Arthur and Elizabeth can talk all night and bore us to tears—”

“Ow, my heart,” Arthur muttered, his voice a disinterested monotone as he winked— _winked_ at me.

Diane stuck her tongue out at him. “Don’t bother waiting for them to dig in—it’s always business, business, business, doom gloom end of the world, _it’s the apocalypse, run, ahhhh!”_ She picked up her fork, clicking her tongue. “I asked Elizabeth if I could take you to dinner, just the two of us, and she said you wouldn’t want to. But _honestly,_ Mel—would you rather spend time with those two ancient bores, or me?”

“For someone who is the _same age_ as me,” Elizabeth drawled, “you seem to forget—”

“Everyone wants to talk-talk-talk,” Diane said, giving a warning glare at Gelda, who had indeed opened her mouth. “Can’t we eat-eat-eat and _then_ talk?”

An interesting balance, between Elizabeth’s terrifying Second and her disarmingly cheery Third. If Diane’s rank was higher than that of the two warriors at this table, then there had to be some reason beyond that irreverent charisma. Some power to allow her to get into that fight with Arthur that Elizabeth had mentioned—and walk away from it.

King chuckled softly at Diane, but picked up his fork. I followed suit, waiting until he took a bite before doing so myself, just in case it was— _good._ So good, the food was _so good,_ rich and full of flavor, and I nearly went boneless at the taste of it. And the _wine—_ I’d barely finished my first sip when Diane clinked her glass against mine. “Don’t let these old busybodies boss you around.”

Gelda said, “Pot. Kettle. Black.” Then she frowned at Arthur, who’d barely touched his own plate. “I always forget how bizarre that is.” She unceremoniously snatched the plate, dumping half the contents on her own before passing the rest to King, who gave an apologetic shrug as he did the same.

“You could at least _ask,_ you know,” Arthur said dryly, flicking his fingers and vanishing the empty plate away. “Or offered Meliodas some. Hospitality and all that.”

“ _Overrated,”_ Gelda drawled, cutting up her roast beef neatly. “Besides, if he wants more, he can ask. He hasn’t even finished his own plate yet.”

“Neither have you,” he pointed out, straightening the silverware at the now-empty place setting, looking rueful. “Though I do suppose that if you actually asked, we’d have to get Elizabeth to scour your brain to see that some _daemati_ hadn’t gotten in.”

I blinked— _daemati daemati daemati—_ before furrowing my brow. “You don’t…eat?”

Arthur shrugged, his grin almost unnerving. “Not this sort of food.”

“Cauldron boil me,” Diane said, gulping from her wineglass. “Can we _not?”_

I decided rather quickly that I didn’t want to know what Arthur ate, either. Elizabeth chuckled from my other side. “Remind me to have family dinners more often.”

Family dinners, not—not official court gatherings. There was bickering, sparring done with honeyed words, but it all seemed to come from a familiar ease, came from genuine warmth—the kind of banter between siblings that pretended to loathe each other, but had each other’s backs when it counted. And tonight, this night of no pretenses, no masks…either they didn’t know that I was here to decide if I truly wanted to work with Elizabeth, or they didn’t feel like pretending to be anything but what they were. They’d no doubt worn whatever they felt like, whether it was armor or gowns or other assorted finery. I could’ve shown up in my nightclothes and I doubted they would’ve batted an eye. A unique group indeed. Against Erebus…who would they be, what could they _do,_ as allies or opponents?

Across from me, a strange and heavy silence seemed to have settled on King, even as the others dug into their food. I peered into that oval of blue stone on his gauntlet as he sipped from his glass of wine. He noticed the glance, swift though it had been, same as he’d no doubt been noticing and cataloging all my movements, words, and breaths. He held up his hands, the backs to me so both jewels were on full display. “They’re called Siphons. They concentrate and focus our power in battle.”

Only he and Gelda wore them. I shot a questioning gaze at Elizabeth, who set down her fork halfway through a bite of potato and explained, “The power of stronger Illyrians tends toward ‘incinerate now, ask questions later.’ They have few magical gifts beyond that—what most call the killing power.”

“Appropriate name,” Arthur murmured. “Illyrians,” he added for my benefit, “are a society of warriors, most of them…violent and warmongering, for lack of a better term.” He grimaced. “There are always outliers, but they have backwards attitudes on…many things.” King nodded, the cuffs on his wrists liquidating again and building into an intricate chainmail hood. Gelda’s face was tight, her body perilously still, but King ignored her.

Elizabeth went on, though I knew she was well aware of every glance between the spymaster and commander, “The Illyrians have spent centuries breeding the power to give them a distinct edge in battle, yes. The Siphons filter that raw power and change it into something subtler and more varied—into shields and weapons, arrows and knives. It’s the difference between hurling a bucket of paint at a wall and using a brush. In its natural state, the magic is messy and unrefined, and especially dangerous when in tight quarters. The Siphons are the brush—they lend to the killing power a precision and versatility it otherwise lacks.” I wondered how much of that they’d needed to do in the past—if that was where those scars on King’s hands came from.

Gelda flexed her fingers, admiring the clear red stones adoring the backs of her own calloused hands. “Doesn’t hurt that they also look damn good.”

Arthur muttered, “Illyrian magpies.”

She bared her teeth in feral amusement, taking a swig of her glass of wine. “Who, exactly, is wearing more jewels than any of us—shut up, Elizabeth, you don’t count, and you too, Di—see on a weekly basis?”

Arthur—the one who was supposedly more powerful than _Elizabeth,_ who had lived over five thousand years, a creature none of us knew the true name of—s _tuck out his tongue_ at Gelda, who laughed. “Firedrake.”

Watching this go back and forth, round and round the table might have been interesting, amusing, even, but I was here with a purpose, even if I didn’t know how to execute that purpose. Get to know them, try to envision how I might work with them, fit into these strange dynamics if this conflict with Erebus exploded… I scrambled for something to ask and looked toward King, whose ribbons of metal had snaked into an elegant silver lining to his gauntlets. “How did you—I mean, how do you and Lady Gelda—”

Gelda spewed her wine across the table, causing Diane to leap up, swearing at her as she used a napkin to mop her dress. But Gelda—Gelda was howling with laughter, King’s face buried in his arms as his shoulders shook with muffled giggles. Even Arthur was snickering, and those snickers turned to cackles as Diane waved a hand and the spots of wine on her dress suddenly appeared on Gelda’s fighting—or flying, perhaps—leathers. My cheeks flamed—some court protocol I’d unknowingly broken, I’d made a fool of myself already—

“Gelda,” Elizabeth drawled, and I was mortified to see her smiling, “is many things, but a lady is not one of them, though I’ve no doubt she appreciates you thinking that she is.” Her gaze swept across the room—across her Inner Circle. “While we’re on the subject, neither is King. Nor Arthur. Diane, believe it or not, is the only pureblooded, titled person in this room.” Not even her? But she was the High Lady, and all High Ladies had been High Fae—unless—

She read the question on my face and said, “I’m half-Illyrian. As good as a bastard where the thoroughbred High Fae are concerned, and stronger than all of them put together—which drove them especially crazy when trying to get me ousted from the throne.” A slow, lazy smile told me that their efforts hadn’t even made a dent in that bottomless pit of power.

“So you three—” I glanced between her, Gelda, and King— “aren’t High Fae?” I’d thought that maybe Illyrians were a specific caste of Fae, some class or clan of a sort. That faeries beyond that higher caste would be allowed into the heart of a court… No, this most certainly wasn’t the Spring Court at all.

Gelda coughed, managing to get her laughter under control. “Oh, certainly _not._ Illyrians and High Fae don’t mix, normally, and we’re usually glad of it.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear—a rounded ear, like mine had once been. “We’re not lesser faeries, either. We’re just—Illyrians. Considered expendable aerial cavalry for the Night Court at the best of times, mindless soldier grunts at the worst.”

“Which is most of the time,” King added. “Illyrians are a powerful force in battle, but past High Ladies have wanted little to do with them outside times of war.” I didn’t dare ask if that liquid steel, that floating spear was part of being Illyrian, too.

“I didn’t see you Under-the-Mountain,” I said instead. I had to know without a doubt—if they were there, if they had seen me ( _human breakable weak still weak liar traitor filthy human heart traitor to Zaneli just like_ he _said),_ if it would impact how they worked with me, how I worked with _them—_

Silence had fallen, I realized a moment later. And none of them, not even Arthur, looked at Elizabeth. Not even a glance. It was Diane who finally raised her head and said, “Because none of us were.”

Elizabeth’s face was carved of ice and moonstone. “Mael didn’t know they existed—and when someone tried to tell him, they usually found themselves without the mind to do so. Or without a mind at all.” She’d been merciless under there, I remembered—merciless and cruel and beautiful. _Mael’s Whore._ A sellout, Zaneli had called her.

A sellout—to protect the loveliest city I’d ever seen, the people she called her friends and looked at like family. I wondered if that was the reason she’d given herself up—so Mael wouldn’t look too hard into her court. If I wouldn’t do the same, if I’d thought Mael might go after Zeldris or Estarossa. “You truly kept this city and all these people hidden from here for fifty years?”

Gelda was staring hard at her plate, as though she might shatter it from force of gaze alone. Arthur said, “We will continue to keep this city and these people hidden from our enemies for a great deal many more.” Not an answer.

Elizabeth hadn’t expected to see them again when she’d been dragged Under-the-Mountain. But she had kept them safe, somehow—at the cost of herself. It killed them— _killed_ the four people at this table. Killed them all that she’d done it, however she’d done it. Every last one of them.

Perhaps it wasn’t just for the fact that Elizabeth had endured Mael alone while they had been stuck here. Perhaps it was also for those left outside the city, too. And perhaps picking one city, one place to shield was better than nothing—better than having all of Britannia bleed and those happy people left weeping and broken. Perhaps it was comforting to have a spot in Britannia that remained untouched. Unsullied.

Diane’s voice was raw as she said to me, her golden combs glinting in the light, “There is not one person in this city who is unaware of what went on outside these borders. Or of the cost.” I didn’t ask about the price that had been demanded. The pain that laced the unending silence told me enough.

Yet if they might all live through their nightmares, their pain and guilt, might still laugh and smile like the world was kind… I cleared my throat, straightening, and said to King, who, regardless of steel and spears, seemed the safest and was therefore probably the least safe, “How did you meet?” A fairly harmless question, just to feel them out, learn who they were. Wasn’t it?

King tilted his head toward Gelda, who was staring at Elizabeth with guilt and love on her face, so deep and agonized that some now-splintered instinct in me had me almost reaching across the table to grip her hand. “Do you want to tell the story,” he said quietly, “or should I?”

Gelda seemed to process the questions a moment later, and a grin ghosted across her face as she leaned back in her chair. “We all hated each other at first.”

Beside me, I realized as she got comfortable in that chair, poured herself another glass of wine, the light had gone out in Elizabeth’s eyes. Guilt curled up and weighed itself down in my chest—what I’d asked about Mael, what horrors I’d made her remember…

A confession for a confession—I thought it had been for my sake. But maybe it was for her own. Maybe she had things she needed to voice, _couldn’t_ voice to these people, not without causing them more pain and guilt. Maybe she’d needed to say them to someone else with a gaping wound in their chest, one who’d _understand._

Gelda went on, drawing my attention from the silent High Lady at my right, “We _are_ bastards, you know. King and I. The Illyrians… We love our people, and our traditions, but they dwell in clans and camps deep in the mountains of the North, and do not like outsiders—especially High Fae who try and tell them what to do. But they’re just as obsessed with lineage, and have their own princes and lords among them. King here,” she said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the now-silent spymaster, “is the son of an outsider and a lord’s servant—and he was a runt on top of it. And if you think the bastard of an Illyrian lord’s servant and a High Fae lord is hated, then you can’t imagine how loathed the bastard daughter is of a war-camp laundress and a warrior she couldn’t or wouldn’t remember.” Her casual shrug didn’t match the dark, vicious glint in her scarlet eyes. “King’s stepfather of sorts sent him to our camp for training once he and his charming wife realized he was a steelsinger.”

Steelsinger. Yes—the title, whatever it meant, seemed to fit. “There are several strange powers a faerie can come into, though no one knows how or why,” Elizabeth said from beside me, stirring slightly. “They are called singers—flamesingers, lifesingers, frostsingers, beastsingers. Most coveted are shadowsingers, masters of stealth and shadow. But s _teelsingers_ are a rarer and highly-prized caste among them, masters of weaponry and metal, able to control it with a thought, bonded to a soul-weapon that enhances their power.”

King saw my gaze drift to the spear at his side and grinned. “Chastiefoile,” he pronounced, and, with a snap of his fingers, it turned into—a pillow, mossy green and flecked with spots. “The Spirit Spear. Apparently, my mother’s lineage dates back to other steelsingers, back to the first—Gloxinia, wielder of Basquias.”

Gelda picked the story back up as soon as King finished talking, “The camp lord practically shit himself with excitement the day King was dumped in our camp. But me… once I was weaned and I was able to walk, they flew me to a distant camp and chucked me into the mud to see if I would live or die.”

“They would’ve been smarter throwing you off a cliff,” Diane snorted.

“Oh, _definitely,”_ Gelda purred, her grin razor-sharp. “Especially because when I was old and strong enough to go back to the camp I’d been born in, I learned that those pricks worked my mother until she died—and that I was expected to do that same.”

Once again, that silence fell—different, this time. Instead of guilt and pain, there was simmering anger and thinly-veiled hunger for—for vengeance, the shared desires of a unit who had endured so much, survived so much, and felt each other’s pain keenly.

“The Illyrians,” Elizabeth cut in, light finally gleaming in her eyes once more, some flickered-out candle reignited, “are unparalleled warriors, rich with stories and traditions. But while the vast majority of Britannia has females rule and rarely allows males into those positions of power, the Illyrians customs are the opposite. More than the opposite, in fact; they are brutal and backward and cruel and proprietary, especially when it comes to bastards and females—the former is usually killed, and the latter…depending on the camp, a female’s worth can range from homemaker and mother to slave.” Her gaze flicked to Gelda—Gelda, who was both bastard-born and a female in those male-led war-camps. If they were anything like the mortal lands…

“They’re barbarians,” Arthur hissed, and neither Illyrian objected. Diane nodded in agreement, even as she noticed the vacant way that King gazed down at his plate, those blue-black wings tucked in tight to his back. “They cripple their females so they can keep them for breeding more of their precious, flawless warriors.”

A cringe from Elizabeth—a half-breed and a female, two things that her father’s side had no doubt loathed. “My father and aunt were low-born,” she informed me. “He was a grunt soldier, a single Siphon to his name—but he was better off than my aunt Nadja. Females—they are not allowed to fight or train to become warriors, or even to fly once they have their first bleeding. Their wings are…clipped, with an incision in a certain spot, left to improperly heal, and after that—after that they can never leave the ground again.” I thought of her, Under-the-Mountain, those wings she had shown me and only me, how she had told me she treasured the flying. My heart ached at the thought of someone losing something like that—losing the ultimate freedom. “My aunt was gentle and wild and loved flying more than anything in the world, so she did anything, everything to stave off that first blood. She starved herself, gathered illegal herbs, tried ‘remedies’ both mortal and faerie. She turned eighteen and hadn’t bled yet, much to my father’s pride and their parents’ horror. But her bleeding eventually came, and a male scented it on her and told the camp’s lord—”

She broke off, shook her head before continuing. “She took right to the skies as soon as she found out, and my father with her, but there were two of them and dozens of the others, and they were both young and slow compared to their more experienced peers. They dragged them back, were about to tie them to the posts in the center of camp—my aunt for the clipping she had staved off for so very long, my father for a clipping of his own as punishment for disobedience—and then my mother winnowed in for a meeting with the lord about readying for the War.” A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “She saw my aunt, thrashing and screaming, and my father, roaring and clawing and trying to get to her, uncaring of his own punishment so long as his little sister could touch the skies, and…” She swallowed. “The mating bond between her and Father clicked into place. One look at him, and she knew who he was—and she misted the guards holding both him and his sister.”

“Misted?” My brow furrowed in confusion.

Gelda let out a wicked chuckle as Elizabeth levitated a lemon wedge that had been drizzled over the potatoes in the air. With a flick of her finger, it turned to citrus-scented mist. _Ah._ “Through the blood rain,” she went on as I firmly shut out all thoughts of what that could do to a body, what _she_ could do to a person, “my father looked at her, the High Lady of the Night Court before me. And the bond fell into place for him. My mother took him back to the Night Court that very evening and made him her groom, offered sanctuary to my aunt. They loved their people, and missed them, but neither forgot what they had tried to do to my aunt—what they did to all the females among them. Baltra—my father tried for decades to get my mother to ban it, but the War was on the horizon and she wouldn’t risk isolating the Illyrians when she needed them to lead her armies.” _And die for her,_ her eyes seemed to add, a cold sort of anger there.

“A real prize, your mother,” Diane grumbled. “All offense meant.” She still looked tense, her eyes fixed on King, who still hadn’t shifted in the slightest,

Elizabeth snorted. “At least she liked you. My father and mother,” she added to me, “despite being mates, were wrong for each other. My mother was cold and calculating, and could be vicious, as she had been trained to be since birth. My father was kind and loyal and fiery and beloved by everyone he met. He hated her after a time—but never stopped being grateful that she had done what he could not and protected Nadja, that he saved her wings and allowed her to fly whenever and wherever she wished. And when I was born and could summon the Illyrian wings as I pleased…well, Nadja wanted to see her homeland again, and Father wanted me to know his people’s culture.”

“He wanted to keep you out of your father’s claws,” Diane interrupted again, swirling her wine. Her shoulders loosened as King blinked at last and looked up, seeming to shake off whatever memory had frozen him.

A chuckle came from the High Lady. “That too. When I turned eight, my aunt brought me with one of the Illyrians war-camps to be trained—the first female, the first half-breed to be trained among the male Illyrians.” Her smile was a slash of silver and white, steel and ivory. “They didn’t dare push back on my training—not with my mother’s eye on them and my own budding powers ready to lash out at whoever so much as looked at me wrong. Some tried to force _me_ to back down, but they usually found themselves with a few missing teeth and black eyes.” She shrugged, cutting up another piece of roast beef. “My aunt, though—she never treated me as anything but another Illyrian warrior. And like all the Illyrian mothers, she shoved me toward the training ring on the first day, and walked away without looking back.”

“She—abandoned you?”

Blue eyes blazed, savage and fiercely protective. “No—never,” she said with a ferocity I’d only heard a few times, one of them being this afternoon. “She was staying at the camp as well. But it is considered an embarrassment for an Illyrian female to coddle her son—nephew, brother, whatever their relationship might be—when he goes to train, and had she offered me any comfort or encouragement, I would’ve immediately been even more of a target, and she couldn’t risk that. _I_ couldn’t risk that, and so I had to claw my way to the top through my own merits.

I couldn’t help raising my eyebrows at that—at the idea that showing care, showing affection was an _embarrassment._ Gelda just laughed, tilting her head. “As backward as she told you, hm?”

“Of course they are. I’m always right.” There was a dryness to Elizabeth’s voice that belied the smug words, as though she herself knew precisely how wrong they were. Indeed, Diane rolled her eyes and Arthur snorted before elbowing Gelda.

“Quit interrupting, I want to hear the story.”

“Shut up, it’s gonna be my story in a second—”

“ _Both of you_ be quiet,” Elizabeth grumbled, before flashing me a grin. “Another thing about us, Meliodas darling—they are woefully immature when it comes to their _bedtime stowy.”_ The last word came out on a croon that had all four of the others looking indignant, one that sparked…amusement in me, like bright golden bubbles rising in my chest. “ _Anyways._ I, of course, was scared out of my mind. Nadja and my father had drilled in the horror stories of what happened to Illyrian females, of what these war-bands were like, and here I was, suddenly in the midst of them. I’d just begun learned to wield my powers, too, and their magic was a mere fraction of it. That power, too, is unusual, usually— _supposed_ to be only possessed by the most powerful purebred warriors.”

Again, I looked at those slumbering, glowing Siphons on the hands of the warriors. Elizabeth followed my gaze and grinned wider. “I tried to use a Siphon during those early years. Broke at least a dozen before it clicked that it simply wasn’t compatible—the stones couldn’t hold it. My power flows and is honed in other ways.”

“Ooh, so _difficult,_ being such a powerful High Lady,” Diane teased.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “The camp-lord banned me from using my magic—with good reason, too. But I had no idea how to fight when I stepped into that training ring that day—especially not how to fight boys already bigger and stronger than I was. None of them wanted to fight a _girl_ except to put me in my place—and of course, as soon as I stepped out of the ring, a single bastard girl who was not considered good enough to serve as a breeder, much less break that age-old tradition of males in the ring, females in the house…she took one look at me and beat me into a bloody mess.”

“You were so _clean,”_ Gelda sighed, shaking her head almost mournfully. “The pretty half-breed daughter of the High Lady, the first female to ever enter an Illyrian training ring, all done up in your brand-new training clothes—

“Gelda,” King broke in suddenly, “trained on her own, mimicking what she saw the fledglings in the ring doing—and resorted to getting new clothes by challenging boys to fights, with the prize being the clothes off their backs. The same often went for other resources.” There was no pride in the words—not for his people’s brutality, their pride and cruelty not allowing them to even assist one of a less-than-traceable bloodline. I didn’t blame the steelsinger for it; to treat _anyone_ that way… Gelda merely chuckled, but I surveyed her—the broad, strong shoulders, the muscle lining her form, the light in her eyes.

I’d never met anyone else in Britannia who had ever been hungry, desperate—not like I’d been.

Gelda blinked, and the way she looked at me shifted—more assessing, less jovial, more… _sincere._ I could’ve sworn I saw the words themselves written in those scarlet eyes: _You know what it is like. You know the mark it leaves._

Her gaze flicked away from me, the rawness in her expression dissipating as she sipped her wine. “I’d beaten all the boys near my age twice at that point—it drove them crazy, that a tiny female who lived in a shoddy lean-to at the edge of the camp could beat them to a pulp; they tried ganging up on me, but I tended to…” Her smile was devious. “Ah, _take an eye for an eye,_ shall we say. But then Elizabeth arrived, and she smelled… _different._ Like a true opponent—plus, she had everything I ever wanted: permission to join the ring, a house to go home to, clothes that fit and food on the table. So, I attacked, and we both got three lashings once they could pull us apart.

I flinched. Hitting children—

“They do worse,” Arthur said matter-of-factly, “in those camps, you know. Three lashings is practically an encouragement to fight again. When they do something truly bad, bones are broken. Repeatedly. Over weeks.”

Like trying to help a sibling escape getting their wings clipped. I said to Elizabeth, “Your father willingly sent you into that?” Fire indeed.

“My father didn’t want me to rely on my power.” She took a bite of potato, swallowed, and continued, “It was clear from the moment I was born that I’d be hunted my entirely life. Where one strength failed, he wanted others to save me—and they have, many, many times.

“My education was another weapon—which is why Nadja went with me: to tutor me after lessons were done for the day. And when she took me home that first night to our new house at the edge of the camp, she made me read by the window—histories, poetry, books of magic and great tales of adventure. It was through that window that I saw Gelda trudging through the mud toward a few ramshackle tents outside of the camp. I asked her where she was going, and she told me that bastards and nameless daughters are given nothing; they find their own shelter, their own food. If the males survive and are picked to be in a war-band, they’ll be bottom-ranking forever, but receive their own tents are supplies. If a female is chosen as a breeder or spouse for one of the warriors, she becomes their responsibility—but until then, she’d stay in the cold.”

“Those mountains,” King added, his face a mask of ice as steel spiked around his wrists, “offer some of the harshest conditions in the world, no matter the season.” I’d spent enough time in frozen woodlands to understand. It didn’t stop the slowly-rising hate for this Illyrian society from rising within me at the idea of leaving young children to live in that, alone.

“After my lessons,” Elizabeth went on, “my aunt cleansed my lashings and as she did, I realized for the first time what it meant to be warm, and safe, and cared for—what it meant that some were not. And it didn’t sit well.”

“Apparently not,” Gelda drawled, “because who did I see in my piss-poor tent but the same little bitch who’d brawled with me that very afternoon, waking me up in the middle of the night to tell me to shut up and come with her. Maybe the cold made me stupid, but I did—and her aunt was _livid._ But I’ll never forget the look on her face when she saw me and said, ‘There is a bathtub with hot running water. Get in it or you can go back into the cold.’” She shrugged, lips curved into a smile that was surprisingly… _soft._ “I was a smart lass, so I obeyed. When I got out, she had clean nightclothes and ordered me to bed—a bed, when I’d spent my life sleeping on the ground. I balked, and she told me that she understood—because she had felt the same once, and that it would feel as though I was being swallowed up, but that bed was mine for as long as I wanted it.”

I blinked. “And you were friends after that?”

Elizabeth barked a laugh. “No—Cauldron, no. We still hated each other—but I refused to train in the ring unless she was allowed to train with me, and they didn’t want to risk me being snatched up by some other camp, and so we were both inducted into the training program. The only reason we both behaved, though, was because if one of us got in trouble or provoked the other, then neither of us would eat that night. My aunt began tutoring Gelda as well, but it wasn’t until King arrived when we were nine that we decided to be allies.”

Gelda’s grin turned mischievous as she reached around Arthur to clap her friend on the shoulder. King sighed, the sound of the long-suffering—the kind of sound the “sensible” one made when faced with idiots. “A new bastard in the camp, a half-breed like darling Ellie and a runt—and an untrained steelsinger to boot! Not to mention he couldn’t even _fly_ thanks to—”

Diane cut in lazily (though with an edge to her voice that again had me wondering what she and King meant to each other), “Stay on track, Gelda.” Indeed, the warmth had again vanished from King’s face. I managed to silence my curiosity as Gelda shrugged, seemingly unbothered by the silence now leaking from the steelsinger. Diane saw that shift from bright to cold and shadowed, though—even if King didn’t bother to acknowledge her concerned gaze, the hand she kept looking at as if she’d reach to touch it, but kept thinking better of it.

Gelda went on, “Elizabeth and I made his life a living hell, steelsinger or no. But Nadja had known his mother and took him in. As we grew older, and the males around us did, too, we realized everyone else hated us enough that we had better odds of survival if we stuck together.”

“Do you have any gifts?” I found myself asking. “Like—them?” I jerked my chin at King and Elizabeth.

“A volatile temper doesn’t count,” King muttered as she opened her mouth. “And I swear on the Cauldron, if you say _anything_ about seduction—”

She gave him that grin that I was starting to figure out meant trouble was coming, but said to me, “No, I don’t—not beyond a heaping pile of the killing power. Bastard-born nobody through and through.” Elizabeth scowled, sat forward like she’d object, but Gelda barged forward with the conversation without even glancing at her, “Even so, the males we trained with knew we were different—and not just because we were two females and a runt. We were stronger, faster—like the Cauldron knew we’d been set apart and wanted us to find each other. Elizabeth’s aunt saw it, too. Especially as we reached the age of maturity and all we wanted to do was fuck and fight.”

“Speak for yourself,” came a grumble from the slumped form of King, his head once more in his hands as Elizabeth grinned wickedly.

“Illyrians are horrible creatures, aren’t they?” Arthur muttered.

“Repulsive,” Diane said, clicking her tongue. Some surviving, small part of my heart wanted to…laugh at that.

Gelda shrugged. “Elizabeth’s power grew every day—and everyone, even the camp-lords—knew she could mist _everyone_ if she wanted, without even breaking a sweat. And the two of us…we weren’t far behind.” She tapped her crimson Siphon with a finger. “A bastard Illyrian had never received one of these. Ever. Factor in the fact that it was a runt and a female doing the receiving, and the probability became that much more infinitesimal. For King and me to both be appointed these, albeit begrudgingly, had every warrior in every camp across those mountains sizing us up. Only pureblood pricks get Siphons—born and bred _for_ the killing power. It kept them up at night, trying to puzzle out where the hell we got it from.”

“Then the War for the freedom of humans came.” All humor left King’s voice as he took over, the very way he said the words making me sit up, listen closer. “And Elizabeth’s mother visited our camp to see how her daughter had fared after twenty years.”

“My mother,” Elizabeth purred, swirling her wine once—twice, “saw that her daughter had not only started to rival her for power, but had allied herself with perhaps the two deadliest Illyrians in history. She got it in her head that if we were given a legion in the War, we might very well turn it against her when we returned.”

Gelda snickered. “The bitch separated us—as if that would save her had we actually tried to steal the throne. She gave Ellie command of a legion that hated her for being a half-breed, before chucking me into a troop to be a common foot soldier, despite the fact that my power easily outranked the commanders’. King was kept to work as her personal steelsinger, her assassin and spy throughout the War. We only saw each other on the battlefields during those seven years—they’d send around casualty lists among the Illyrians, and I read each one, wondering, dreading that I might see their names on it. But then Elizabeth was captured—”

“ _That,”_ Elizabeth said, so sharply that Gelda arched her eyebrows, “is a story for another time.” The commander dipped her head, and Elizabeth’s blue eyes met mine, incandescent. I wondered if it was true starlight that flickered so intensely in them as she said, “Once I became High Lady, I appointed these four to my Inner Circle, and told the rest of my mother’s old court that if they had a problem with my friends, they could leave. Every last one of them did.” Her smile was dry. “It was almost like having a half-breed for a ruler was made worse by her appointment of a hodgepodge of misfits.”

As bad as humans, in some ways—more ways than I’d thought once upon a time. “What—what happened to them? The ones who left.”

Elizabeth shrugged, those great wings shifting with the movement. “The nobility of the Night Court fall into three categories: those who hated me enough that when Mael took over, they joined his court and later found themselves dead; those who hated me enough to try and overthrow me and faced the consequences; and those who hated me, but not enough to be stupid and have since tolerated a half-breeds rule, especially when it so rarely interferes with their miserable lives.”

“Are they—the ones who live beneath that other mountain?” I remembered that wall of white marble, the three doorways in it, the way she’d told me that the court there mainly ruled itself and that she did not like for it to taint the things she did beyond it.

A nod. “Yes, in the Hewn City. I gave it to them for being slightly less imbecilic about their assholery. They’re happy to stay there, rarely leaving, ruling themselves and being as wicked as they please for all eternity.” That was the court she must have shown Mael when he first arrived—and its malice must have pleased him enough that he modeled his own after it.

“The Court of Nightmares,” Diane murmured.

“And what…what is this court?” I asked, gesturing to them—the most important question, the one this entire night spiraled around for me.

It was Gelda, her eyes as clear and bright as her Siphons, who said, “The Court of Dreams.”

The Court of Dreams—the dreams of a half-breed High Lady, two bastard warriors…and a fairytale princess and a boy of leashed lightning and choked flame. “And you?” I said to Diane and Arthur.

Arthur hummed. “Ellie offered to make me her Second. No one had ever asked me to take a position like that before, so I said yes, to see what it might be like. I found I enjoyed it.”

Diane leaned back in her seat, King seeming torn between watching every movement she made and glancing away, pink tinging the tips of his ears. “I was a dreamer born into the Court of Nightmares,” she said. She twirled a strand of rich, dark hair around a finger, and I wondered if her story might be the worse of them all as she said simply, “So I got out.”

“You’ve heard our stories,” Gelda said, bracing her elbows on the table, chin in her hands. “What’s yours?”

I’d assumed Elizabeth had told them everything—but she merely shrugged at me, her gaze a silent, subtle reassurance. _Your choice, your choice, your choice._

I straightened. “I was born to a wealthy merchant family, with two younger brothers and parents who only cared about their money and social standing. My father died when I was eight, my mother lost their fortune three years later. She sold everything to pay off the debts of my father and herself, moved us into a hovel, and didn’t bother to find work while she let us slowly starve for years.” Those years had been the worst—the adjustment, the realization that I, a child of barely eleven, was now supposed to be patriarch and provider, trying to keep my brothers fed and warm and find books for them to learn from, puzzles so they could amuse themselves while Mother stared into the fire. “I was fourteen when the last of the money ran out along with the food. She still wouldn’t work—couldn’t, because the debtors came and shattered her leg in front of us when they found my father was already six feet under. So I went into the forest and taught myself to hunt, and kept us all alive, if not near starvation at times, for five years. And then…”

Then I had killed a wolf-that-was-not-a-wolf. Then Zaneli had come bursting in wearing the skin of a monster and taken me as tribute. Then I had fallen in love, and broken myself to pieces for her, only to be locked up like a songbird in return. “And then everything happened,” I finished rather lamely.

They’d fallen quiet again, King’s gaze now resting on me thoughtfully. He hadn’t told his story—did it ever come up? Or did they never discuss the burn scars on his hands? And what did the steel whisper to him—did it speak in a language at all?

But Gelda said, “You taught yourself to hunt? What about fighting—did you learn any of that?” I shook my head, suddenly feeling shame pulse in my gut. The warrior before me had taught herself to fight against all the stigma of her people, even when she was starving and cold. Compared to her, I was…pathetic. But she didn’t say any of that as she opened her mouth again—just leaned forward and grinned. “Lucky for you, you’ve just found yourself a teacher.”

I opened my mouth, protests already rising, but—Elizabeth’s father and aunt had given her an arsenal of weapons to use if the others failed. What did I have in my own beyond a good shot with a bow and brute stubbornness? And if I had this new power—these _other_ powers, given to me along with this Fae body and new life…

I would not be weak again. I would not be dependent on anyone else. I would never have to endure those like Mael, would never be left to writhe and claw and scream in the grasp of his servant, the Indura, as it dragged me because I was too helpless to know where and how to hit, would never have to face that overwhelming terror. Never again.

But Ludociel and Zaneli—they’d said— “You don’t think it sends the—the wrong sort of message, if people—” I stumbled over the words, trying to pull them out of the shards of my soul and leave them bare for all these dreamers to see. “If they see me learning to fight—to use weapons?” The moment the words were out, I realized the stupidity of them. The stupidity of—of what had been shoved down my throat these past few months. Of all I had taken as fact without questioning it, because surely Zaneli knew better, surely Ludociel did, surely they were right—but they weren’t, and I hadn’t even bothered trying to fight it.

Silence again. Then Diane said with a lethal quiet that made me understand that the High Lady’s Third had received training of her own in that Court of Nightmares, “Let me tell you two things—as someone who has perhaps been in your shoes before.” Again, that shared bond of agony, of rage throbbed between them all. “One—you have left the Spring Court.” I tried not to let the full weight of those words sink in, the truth that would define me from this point onwards. “If that does not send a message, for better or worse, then your training will not either. Two,” she continued, laying her palm flat on the table, eyes of deep amethyst brimming with pride and power, “I once lived in a place where the opinions of others mattered. It suffocated me, nearly broke me—so you’ll understand me, Meliodas, when I say that I know what you feel, and I know what they tried to do with you, and that with enough courage and willpower, you can say to hell with a reputation.” Her voice softened, the fury evaporating, and the bond taut between them vanished. “You do what you love, what _you_ need.”

Diane would not tell me what to wear or not wear. She would not speak for me, nor allow me to step aside and give up my own voice to another. She would not…would not do any of the things that I had so willingly, desperately allowed Ludociel to do, to let me run away from.

I had never had a friend close enough to do those things for me, be the person I needed as a pillar and not a patronizing shield. Ludociel had pretended to be that, but…he hadn’t been, not in the ways that mattered. And Zeldris and Estarossa, in those few weeks I’d been home before I’d ridden out to stop Mael for good, had begun to fill that role, but… I couldn’t explain it, couldn’t quite understand it, but I _felt_ it. Like I really could go to dinner with her, talk to her—not that I had much of anything to offer her in return for dealing with _me._

But what she’d said—what they’d all said… Yes, Elizabeth had been wise to bring me here. To let me decide if I could handle them—the teasing and the intensity and power. If I _wanted_ to be a part of a group who would push me to my limits, overwhelm me with everything they were, and even frighten me, but… If they were willing to stand against Erebus, after already fighting them five hundred years ago…

I met Gelda’s gaze, and though her scarlet eyes danced with fire, there was no amusement there. “I’ll think about it,” I said softly, and my voice did not shake. Through the bond wrapped around my hand and through my soul, I could’ve sworn I felt a glimmer of pleased surprise. I checked my mental shields, wondering if they’d slipped while I’d been observing the others—but no, they were firmly intact, and Elizabeth’s calm face revealed no hint of origin.

Warriors. The people here were warriors and fighters, beasts and monsters, young gods brimming with power and courage, and I…I ached to be part of them, somewhere deep in my heart. There was doubt, but it didn’t touch my voice as I turned to Elizabeth. “I accept your offer—to work with you and yours, and earn my keep. I’ll help against Erebus any way I possibly can.”

Her lips quirked up slightly, even as the others raised their eyebrows. Evidently, they _hadn’t_ known that this was an interview of sorts—an audition, almost. “Excellent,” she replied, eyes going from blue-black to nearly incandescent in the light. “Because we start tomorrow.”

 _Tomorrow?_ I’d thought I might at least have a day to adjust—two, preferably (though I couldn’t help wondering if she feared that I would spend them in hiding—couldn’t help wondering if _I_ feared that). “Where?” I managed not to sputter like a fool as I spoke, keeping my voice even despite the edge of incredulity that crept in unbidden. “And what—why?”

Elizabeth hummed low in her throat, intertwining long, deceptively dainty fingers and resting them on the table before her empty plate. Another purpose—of course this dinner hadn’t been called simply so I could meet her—her _family._ Of course it wouldn’t be, with war coming. “The King of Erebus is indeed about to launch a war, and he wants to resurrect Vivian to do it.”

 _Vivian._ I remembered her—or more accurately, the wild amber eye Mael had imprisoned in that ring of bone. The stories of her, though, had followed me Under-the-Mountain as her frozen eye tracked my movements: an ancient human warrior-mage who killed the only person Mael had cared for beyond himself, a terrifying, jealous woman who’d used the heart of a Fae against them to kill them and lay them dead at Mael’s feet—Mael, who had, in a fit of rage, decimated Vivian in combat, set to killing her slowly, and carved her finger bone into a ring before setting one of those wicked amber eyes in it.

The ring that contained her eye…

“Bullshit,” Gelda spat. “There’s no way to do that.”

Arthur, though—Arthur had gone still, and King was observing him through narrowed eyes, marking every movement as the High Lady’s Second slowly tilted his head toward Elizabeth. “There is a way,” the spymaster said quietly, never flinching as those unearthly, terrible eyes snapped toward him. “Isn’t there, Arthur?”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Arthur dipped his head, and Gelda burst into a swearing fit, one that King _joined_ this time.

  _Mael was just the beginning._ Elizabeth had told me as much, months ago, before all of— _this,_ before coming here permanently was so much as an _idea._ Had she known this even then—even while we were trapped under Mael’s thumb? Had those terrible months— _years,_ for her—all been the opening act of whatever twisted opus that the King would soon unleash? And resurrecting the dead—what sort of unholy power—

Diane groaned, drawing my attention. “Why would the king want to resurrect _Vivian,_ of all people? She was so _odious._ All she liked to do was talk about herself and Gilthunder, Gilthunder, her precious Gil or whatever the hell she called him.”

The age of these people suddenly hit me like a brick—hit me _now,_ despite all they’d told me moments ago. The War, the one in which the wall had formed and humans had been liberated…they had all fought _in_ the War five hundred years ago. Legends like Vivian, people like the king and Mael…they had known them _personally._

“That’s what I want to find out,” Elizabeth said, shifting back in her chair, straight-backed and sharp-eyed. “And how the king plans to do it.”

Arthur, speaking at last, said, “Word will have reached him by now of Meliodas’s Making. He knows it’s possible for the dead to be reborn—and made anew.” There was something akin to worry on his face, in those eyes so inhuman, as his gaze flicked to me. “He might be a target.”

A target—like Zaneli had said. But before I could ponder it, Elizabeth’s eyes darkened. “Then the king will go through us.” Terrifying. She was terrifying, but the hum of agreement that tightened between the five…it was almost comforting.

I _would_ find a way to fight for myself, though. I would. And I would take Gelda up on her offer.

“To bring someone back to life like Meliodas, all seven High Ladies would have to agree,” Diane added, changing the subject swiftly. “There’s not a chance in hell of that. He’ll take another route.” Her eyes narrowed to pulsing violet slits as she faced Elizabeth. “The massacres at the temple. You think it’s tied to this?”

“I don’t think, Diane, I know. I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for certain, but King confirmed that they’d raided the memorial in Tintagel three days ago. They’re looking for something—or they’ve found it.” King nodded in confirmation, even as Diane cast a querying look his way—and then a surprised, almost affronted one. He shrugged apologetically in response.

Vivian—if they wanted Vivian… “That’s why that ring and eye vanished after Mael died,” I breathed. “For this. But who…” There hadn’t been enough of her cronies left who possibly could, and the High Ladies had hunted them all down—all of them, except… “They never caught the Indura, did they?” The one who had tortured me—tortured me and so many others, who was as savage and cruel as Mael himself. His favorite servant—and the one I feared most.

Elizabeth’s voice was quiet, soft and cold as ice as she said, “No. No, they didn’t.” The food in my stomach turned to leaden weight in my gut as she turned to Arthur and continued, “How does one take an eye and a finger-bone and make it into a woman again? And how do we stop it?”

He frowned down at his untouched wine like it had personally offended him. “You already know how to find the answer. Go to the Prison. Talk to the Bone Carver.”

 _“Shit,”_ came a hiss from both Diane and Gelda, but Arthur didn’t move—kept staring down at the table, eyes of lilac fathoms and mists of gold vacant, lost in whatever memories a five-thousand-year-old being had stored within such a strange and ancient mind.

Elizabeth said calmly, “Perhaps you would be more effective, Arthur.”

His head snapped up, and I was suddenly grateful as he bared his teeth in a snarl, eyes blazing as power snapped and danced around him. The true face of the strange and ever-shifting Second—and he looked almost like a corner, terrified animal. And as a hunter, I knew that his kind were the most dangerous of all. “I will not set foot in the Prison, Elizabeth, and you know it. So go yourself, or send one of _them—”_ he jerked his chin at the others— “to do it for you.”

Gelda grinned despite the surge of power and rage, showing long, sharp fangs—perfect for biting. Arthur snapped his once in return, warningly. King just shook his head, shooting Gelda a look that I recognized as _“don’t antagonize”—_ one I’d had to give Zeldris a dozen times over. “I’ll go. The Prison sentries know me—what I am.”

I wondered if the steelsinger was usually the first to throw himself into danger as Diane’s fingers stilled on the stem of her wineglass, eyes narrowing at Arthur. The jewels, the gold, the pale seafoam gown—all perhaps a way to downplay, whatever dark power roiled in her veins, the mask of the Third—

“If anyone,” Elizabeth interrupted before Diane could open her mouth, “is going to the Prison, it will be me. And Meliodas.”

“What?” Diane demanded, voicing precisely what my thoughts on the matter were.

Arthur’s eyes sparked with understanding, that behemoth of power finally settling as he nodded. “He won’t talk to Elizabeth, or King, or any of us. We’ve nothing to offer him. But an immortal with a mortal soul…” His gaze turned to me, burning, burning with the strangest intensity, as though he could see the fractured heart pounding beneath, and I found myself contemplating yet again what he ate. “The Bone Carver might be willing indeed to parley with him.”

They stared at me—as if waiting for me to beg not to go, to curl up and cower. Their own quick, brutal kind of interview to see if they wanted to work with _me,_ I supposed. To see if I was the shivering young creature from the Spring Court that Elizabeth had brought here on a bargain mere months ago, or something…new.

The Bone Carver of this strange Prison, the monstrous imps of the Spring Court, the wicked and cruel Indura, the wise and truth-telling Suriel, the fearsome Aonan and the ever-hungry Middengard Wyrm… Perhaps they’d broken whatever part of me truly feared.

Or perhaps fear was something I now only felt in my darkest dreams.

“Your choice, Meliodas,” Elizabeth said casually. To shirk the duty I’d just chosen and mourn and mope, or face some unknown horror—the choice was easy.

“How bad can it be?” was all I said.

“Bad,” Gelda muttered. None of them bothered to contradict her.

This would be…an _experience._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, that one was long--but hey, you've now met the Inner Circle! Thoughts? Questions? Predictions? Please read and review--I want to hear your opinions!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not quite the dawn of a brand new day, but it's something close--especially when two shattered, broken souls look at each other and finally try to understand each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: a character talks about their past experiences and sexual assault--not explicitly, but it's there. There's also a lot of PTSD and nightmares going on in this particular chapter.

_Vivian._

The name echoed in my head like the dreadful clang of some prophecy, rung in my ears all throughout dinner and stayed there even after Diane and Gelda and King and Arthur finished debating and snapping and bickering about who would be doing what and where they’d be doing it while Elizabeth and I went to the Prison—whatever that was—tomorrow.

Elizabeth flew me back over the city, plunging into the swirling sea of glimmering lights and velvety darkness. I quickly found that I much preferred ascending to this sharp descent, and kept my eyes closed throughout most of it, unable to watch for too long without feeling my dinner rise up. Not fear, not what usually left me curled and retching in the bathroom, but just some reaction of my body—a reaction to the fall.

We flew in silence this time, the howling of the winter wind drowning out anything, everything else, though her cocoon of warmth kept it from freezing me entirely. Only when the music and laughter and life of the streets welcomed us did I peer into her face, those lovely features unreadable as she focused on flying. “Tonight—I felt you again in the bond.” Blue eyes flicked to mine, and I swallowed. “Did I get past your shields, or you past mine—how did that happen?”

Her gaze drifted back to the smooth slate streets below us, guiding us back to the townhouse. “The bond…it’s alive, in some ways—an open channel between us, shaped in part by my powers, and by…by what you needed when we made this bargain there.” Under-the-Mountain—when I’d been sick with an infected wound and locked in that filthy cell between challenges, when the fever had been sapping my life away bit by bit. When I’d needed to live, and had not feared living.

“I needed not to be dead.”

“You needed not to be alone.”

Our eyes met, my own green fixed upon that endless blue. Even with the encroaching city lights, it was too dark to read whatever was in her gaze. I was the one who looked away first.

“I’m still learning,” she admitted quietly, “how and why and when we can feel things the other doesn’t want known. So I don’t have an explanation for what you felt tonight, or earlier, though I’m sorry—if I caused you distress earlier.”

I didn’t answer, my mind zeroed in on those six words _: You needed not to be alone._ But she—she had been separated from her friends, her _family_ for fifty years, a woman with wings practically born in the sky trapped alone in an eternal prison of stone cages. And she’d…played the hand she’d been dealt, terrible though it was, and became a monster. “You let Mael and the entire world think you rule and revel in a Court of Nightmares, but…it’s for _this_ , isn’t it.” I glanced down at the city below us. “To keep what matters most safe.”

That inhumanly lovely face was gilded by the lights of the city, gleaming in diamond and gold. “I love my people, and my family, and the city we call home.” Her voice was soft, nearly a purr—nearly, but not quite. “Do not think that I wouldn’t become that monster to keep them protected.”

The monster—the one who made me dance for her Under-the-Mountain, who kissed me once, fiercely, and licked my tears off my face, who slaughtered and tortured with a single thought and flicked blood off her hands because she didn’t want to ruin whatever devastating ensemble she wore to Mael’s revels. The one who had screamed and screamed while I died, while Zaneli sat and— _stared_. It was a mask I would’ve broken under, and yet she’d worn it flawlessly. All for the sake of the four people in that House of Wind, and the innocents in the city. “The one you’ve been for these past fifty years.”

The wind tossed her hair, snarling it into tangles of moonlight and quicksilver. “I suspect I’ll have to do it again soon enough, loathsome though it is.”

 _Loathsome though_ I _am_ , her eyes seemed to say, but I could not—simply couldn’t bring myself to touch that part of her, not when I myself was still broken, trying to stitch my bleeding, torn edges together into something resembling health and stability. “What was the cost?” I asked instead. “Of keeping this place secret—and free?”

She shot straight down, wings beating evenly to keep our descent smooth as we landed on the roof of the townhouse. I made to step away as my feet touched the ground, but her fingers locked tightly around my wrist, forcing me to stare into those blue, blue eyes—bright as sapphires, lit from within and yet shattered at the center. “You know the cost already.”

 _Mael’s Whore_.

Elizabeth inclined her head, and I thought I might have said the two vile words, her title, her crown and her prison and her shame, aloud. “When he tricked me out of my powers and left ashes and scraps behind, I still had more than the others. It was not quite enough to dredge that well within me entirely, and so I used everything—everything I did not dare show, that extra scrap of strength—to tap into the mind of every citizen of my court he captured, anyone who might know the truth. I linked a web between them all, actively controlling their minds every day for those five awful decades to forget about Liones, to forget about Diane, and Arthur, and Gelda, and King. All that was still good in the world—all that I loved and could not bear to be broken.”

She swallowed, those blue eyes—broken glass and barbed wire—closing for a moment. “Mael wanted to know who was close to me—who to kill, and torture, and who to turn into his pets so that I might be controlled all the better, the High Lady on a leash. But while I gave him the worst of my enemies in the Court of Nightmares, my true court was here, ruling this city. I used all I had left to shield them all from prying eyes, sight and sound. There was only enough for one city—one place in all of Britannia, and so I chose the one that had been hidden from history already. _I_ chose—to save a few and leave the rest of the world to burn, and now must live with the consequences of knowing there were thousands left outside who suffered—and that because of me, they didn’t even know that sanctuary could exist.”

It did haunt her, I realized—every damn day, it haunted her, just as she said. The knowledge made me listen, really _listen_ as she continued, “The people here became isolated. Anyone flying or traveling near Liones saw nothing but wasteland and mountains and barren valleys, and would feel a sudden compulsion to avoid the area. Trading came to a halt, sailors learned to work the earth around Liones instead of the seas. And because my powers were focused on shielding them all, Meliodas, I had only the dregs to use against Mael, and that I could not risk without also risking everything else. So I decided that to keep him from asking questions about the people who mattered, I would be his whore.”

She’d done all of that, had done such horrible things…done everything for her people, her friends, the family she’d forged herself through blood and fire and was willing to bleed herself out to defend. The mat—or the bed of a wicked man whose king commanded him to rule this place, and who decided to break the most powerful High Lady of them all, not knowing that she had chosen this willingly to protect anything she could from him. And the only piece of herself that she’d hidden and managed to keep him from tainting, destroying, even if it meant fifty years trapped in an underground cage of rock…

Those wings, magnificent and beautiful and terrible all at once, flared wide now as blue eyes like hollow stars drifted away to the city she’d sold her soul for. How many knew about the wings outside of Liones and those Illyrian war-camps? Or had she wiped all memory of them from Britannia long before Mael—to keep the symbol of the freedom she’d lost safe from scrutiny?

Elizabeth released my wrist, but I gripped her arm before she could step back, feeling the strange strength beneath those deceptively slim arms. “It’s a shame,” I said, the words nearly swallowed whole by the music of the city, “that others in Britannia don’t know—that you let them think the worst, and hide…” Strength, kindness, humor, warmth, _goodness_ —for she was good, that much I knew, even if she was still quite capable of being an ass and a bitch and an infuriating one at that. “That you hide all that you are from them all.”

The corner of her mouth quirked up—not a smile, not even by half, but better that unholy, shattered glow, the thrum of darkness in her soul—before tugging her arm free of my grip and stepping back, her wings beating the air like mighty drums. “As long as the people who matter most know the truth, I don’t care about the rest. Get some sleep, Meliodas, darling—it’s a new day tomorrow, and it’ll be a long one.”

Then Elizabeth shot into the sky, and was swallowed by the darkness between the stars.

* * *

 

I collapsed into a sleep so heavy, my dreams a riptide that pulled me away from peace and an undertow that dragged me down, down, down until I couldn’t escape them.

I lay naked and prone on a marble floor painted scarlet in blood that I somehow knew was my fault, staring up into a familiar pair of horrible golden eyes, a smile of malevolent delight on a face I dreaded, long hair somewhere between white and gray spilling over broad shoulders as Mael slid a knife along my bare ribs. The steel was more a tickle than a pain, but I could feel the blood welling up in its wake. “Lying, traitorous human,” he rumbled, “with your filthy, lying heart.”

The knife scratched against my fair skin again, a cool caress. I fought to rise, to at least get away from that blade, those eyes, but my body would not obey me.

A grotesque parody of a kiss was pressed to the hollow of my throat, tears leaking from my eyes as I struggled against whatever was holding me captive. “You’re as much a monster as me,” he breathed, curving the knife up along my collarbone, down toward my chest where my heart beat, the pounding of it fast as a frightened rabbit’s. A sob escaped me. “Don’t waste your tears.”

Someone far away was roaring my name, begging for me, bargaining and screaming, just a shadow behind Mael.

“I’m going to make eternity a hell for you,” he promised, the tip of the dagger piercing the sensitive flesh of my chest, his lips hovering a breath above mine as he pushed—

* * *

 

Hands—there were hands on my shoulders, shaking me, squeezing me, going to drag me away, down, down, down, _down_ to that prison, to the place of blood and death and pain and they were going to _cage me again_. I thrashed against them, screaming, screaming—all I could do was scream and Mael was going to take me down there, rip me to pieces slowly, just as he tortured Vivian in the legends, just as he slowly took apart anyone who crossed him piece by piece and I was next I was next _I was next_ —

_“MELIODAS.”_

The voice was the night and the dawn and the stars and the earth, the entire universe contained in that simple pronunciation of my name, and every inch of my body relaxed at it, my breath still heaving in my lungs as those hands released me and I sank back against the pillows. There was some kind of—primal power with in it, some dominance held over me, but my head was too fuzzy to register or fear it.

“Open your eyes,” the voice ordered, terrifyingly calm.

I did. My throat was raw from screeching my pain to the entire house, my mouth full of a strange smoky taste that felt like ash, and Elizabeth—Elizabeth was hovering above me, her eyes wide. “It was a dream,” she breathed, her own breath rasping in her lungs much as mine did. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

The moonlight trickling through the windows illuminated the dark lines of swirling, intricate tattoos down her arm, across her shoulders, what I could see of her chest through the not-quite sheer nightgown and all down her legs. Like the ones I bore on my arm—the mark of that bargain we’d made, the one she’d given me in exchange for a chance to survive to face Mael’s trials again. Wild blue eyes scanned my face, one moon-pale hand pulling back from where she’d cupped my cheek. “A dream,” she repeated.

Liones. I was in Liones, at her house. And I had—my dream, my _nightmare_ —

The sheets, the blankets were torn to shreds, but not with a knife—not with any physical claws, either. That ashen taste in my mouth, the smoke curling in it… My hand was unnaturally steady as I lifted it to my line of sight, lifted it to find my fingers ending in simmering embers trailing white smoke through the air. Living claws of flame that had sliced through my bed linens like they were cauterizing wounds— _knife wounds_ —

I shoved her off with a gasp, falling out of the bed and slamming into a chest of drawers before heaving myself up against the wall, banging my shoulder against the doorway as I shot into the bathing room. My knees hit the tile floor with a smack, pain that I could not process in my panic radiating through me as I retched into the toilet. Again, and again, and I could not stop, couldn’t stop the vomiting or the flames that hissed against the cool porcelain.

Gentle, warm hands pulled my overgrown hair back a moment later. “Breathe,” Elizabeth murmured. “Imagine them winking out like candles, one by one.”

They did not wink out like candles—not as I heaved into the toilet again, shuddering as light and heat rose like a cresting wave and rushed out of me. I sank gratefully into the cool, empty darkness that pooled in its wake, my eyes drifting closed against the onslaught of dizziness.

“That’s certainly one way to do it,” was all she said as I finally dared to look at my hands, braced against the toilet bowl. The embers hand been extinguished—that feral power limning my bones, churning in my veins, filling the void in my soul I had once filled with light and art, all gone with it into slumber. The nausea struck again moments later and I choked on it, shoulders heaving.

“I have this dream,” Elizabeth whispered a second later as I retched again, still holding my hair out of my face. “Where it’s not—it’s not _me_ stuck under him, but Gelda or King, and he’s pinned their wings to the bed with spikes, and there’s nothing I can do, no bargain I can make with any dark god or higher power, that will stop it. He commands me to watch, and the only thing I can do is sit there and see how utterly I have failed them.”

I clung to the toilet, spitting once, and reached up to flush. I watched the water swirl away entirely before I twisted my head to look at her. Her fingers were gentle, but firm where she’d wound them through my hair, eyes hollow with her own demons. “You never failed them,” I rasped, and I knew that they would be horrified—would be filled with their own grief and rage at the knowledge that Elizabeth felt that. That all of those four would.

“I did… _horrible_ things to ensure that.” Those blue eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. “And I am not entirely sure that I succeeded.”

“If you’re a monster, then so am I.” I didn’t know what compelled me to say the words—some vestige of that dream-Mael, her words earlier about needing not to be alone—but they slipped out, my eyes still fixed on hers. _Don’t make me be a monster all by myself._

“Meliodas—”

“I, too—I’ve done irredeemable things.” My sweat clung to me like blood painted over my skin—the blood of those two faeries, the ones I’d _murdered—_ I pivoted, barely turning in time before bile streamed past my lips. Her other hand stroked long, soothing lines down the curve of my back as over and over I yielded my dinner. When the latest wave ebbed, I breathed, “The flames?”

“Autumn Court.”

I couldn’t muster a response. At some point, I leaned against the coolness of the nearby bathtub and closed my eyes. When I awoke, sun streamed through the windows, and I was in my bed—tucked in tightly to the fresh, clean sheets.

* * *

 

I gazed up at the sharp, grassy slope of the mountain—a small one compared to those in the Night Court, but a mountain nonetheless—shivering at the veils of mist draped across the place, wafting past and raising goosebumps on my skin. Behind us, the land swept away to brutal cliffs and an ocean that roared and snarled like a living beast with an armor of pewter-colored seawater. Before us lay nothing but a wide-flat-topped mountain of gray stone and moss. I could feel nothing from it—no glamour to trick my mind, no power or chilling gazes. It seemed, for all intents and purposes, like a strange—but ordinary—mountain.

Elizabeth stood at my side, decked head to toe in steel—no sweeping gowns or casual shirts and pants today. No, instead she was clothed in what I could only assume were Illyrian fighting leathers, based on what Gelda and King had worn the previous night. A double-edged sword was sheathed along her spine, knives strapped all down her legs, two more tucked into the inside of her gauntlets. The dark pants were tight, made of scale-plated leather that had no doubt seen use, judging from the marks across it—all the scars that she, as Fae, could not quite physically bear. They were—as much as I hated myself for noticing it—sculpted to legs that I hadn’t noticed were quite that muscled. The close-fitting jacket had been built around wings that were fully out today, dark armor added at the shoulders and forearms.

If her attire hadn’t told me enough about what we might be facing today—if my own, similar attire had not told me enough (it was strange, so strange, catching my reflection in a stream beside hers—we looked like twin shadows, opposites and yet matched)—all I needed to do was to take one look at the rock ahead and know it wouldn’t be pleasant. I’d been so distracted in the study an hour ago by what Elizabeth had been writing as she drafted a careful request to visit the Summer Court that I hadn’t thought to ask what to expect _here_. Not that Elizabeth had actually bothered to explain _why_ she wanted to visit the Summer Court beyond “improving diplomatic relations.”

“Where, precisely, are we?” I asked, the first words we’d shared winnowing in from Liones a moment ago. The city had been brisk, but sunny, warmth gilding the winter chill. This place, wherever it was, was freezing—and completely, utterly deserted. Nothing but stone and grass and mist and sea.

“On an island in the heart of the Western Isles.” Elizabeth seemed distracted, at least somewhat, as she stared up at the mammoth mountain. “And _that_ ,” she added, pointing to it, “is the Prison.”

There was nothing—no one around, probably not for miles. “I don’t see anything.”

“The rock _itself_ is the Prison, darling. Inside it are the foulest, most dangerous creatures and criminals you can imagine.”

A mountain—a prison in a mountain, and we were going _inside_ the stone, under another _mountain_ —

“This place,” she explained as my heart began to beat an uneven tattoo, still gazing at it, “was made before High Ladies even existed. Before Britannia was Britannia. Some of the inmates remember those days—even a time when it was Diane’s family, not mine, that ruled the North and its people.”

“Why won’t Arthur go in here?”

“Because he was once a prisoner.”

A prisoner—the one with the gentlest smile out of all that strange family of five, with those unholy eyes… “Not in that body, I take it.”

A cruel smile. “Not at all.” I shivered again, and her smile turned into a grin. “The hike will get your blood warming,” she announced, dusting off her hands rather cheerily. “We can’t winnow or fly to the entrance—old magic means the wards demand that visitors walk in the long way. Rather dreadful, but there’s no arguing with ancient assholes long dead.”

I didn’t move. “I—” Whatever explanation I wanted to make, whatever questions I could ask lodged in my throat, choking me. Go under another mountain filled with horrors, another mountain prison full of monsters—

Her eyes softened. “It helps the panic,” she said quietly, “to remind myself that I got out. That we all got out, and can now come and go as we please. That we are _free_.”

“Barely.” I tried to breathe—couldn’t, not against the fear, the terror, I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I _couldn’t_ —

“We got out,” she repeated. “And it might happen again, and this time we might not escape. But we can have a chance at stopping it if we go inside.”

The icy mist bit at my face, and I tried—I did, with everything in me—to take a step toward that mountain.

My body refused to obey.

I tried to take a step again, tried for Estarossa and Zeldris and the human world that would be torn to shreds, and for all Elizabeth had told me last night and for those four strange people and even for Jenna and Ludociel and Zaneli and for the two Fae I’d slaughtered, but… I couldn’t.

“Please,” I whispered. I didn’t care if it meant that I’d failed yet again—that I had let them down against everything I’d said last night.

Elizabeth, as promised, didn’t ask any questions as she gripped my hand and brought us back to the winter sun and rich colors of Liones. I didn’t leave my bed for the rest of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loved it? Hated it? Curious? Excited for more? Tell me! Please leave a review or a short comment; it's things like that that keep us writers writing!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's trapped in a prison of their own making. It's... _interesting _to see the heart of another's cage, for once. Even if the person who resides inside it is absolutely terrifying.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentions of suicidal thoughts

When I woke, Arthur was perched on the footboard of my bed.

I jolted back, slamming into the headboard as I registered those unholy eyes, that slight frown. The morning light was blazing in, blinding me as I fumbled for a weapon, for _anything_ I could use to throw the intruder out. A wild glance to the door told me it was shut, that he’d found his way in somehow. Elizabeth said that no one entered without her permission, but—

“I know how it feels.” His voice was calm, steady, and I stilled, managing to hold his gaze as he titled his head, messy strands of ginger hair falling in his face. “That fear of being trapped, that is—of going underground. Everyone here has their own ghosts, their own demons to fight, but this is one that you and I, at least, share. It took me a long time to stop turning the caves I forced myself to enter to dust in my fear, and even longer to learn how not to do so in rage—and I still cannot enter the Prison. Still won’t.”

I recalled, dimly, that Elizabeth had said that Arthur had been imprisoned there once—not in the body of a High Fae, but in the form of whatever creature shone through his strange, shifting gaze. The way his eyes, his tone had sharpened when Elizabeth suggested that he might be the one to talk to this “Bone Carver” …that fear had been real, and yet he was strong in spite of it—perhaps _because_ of it. As Elizabeth was stronger for all she had suffered, and Gelda, and King, and Diane. As I was not.

He chucked something onto the bed—a delicate gold amulet of ivory and cloudy gray stone. “This got me out of the Prison. Wear it in, and they cannot keep you, cannot touch you. You will remain free—Elizabeth gave you that promise, but I, _we_ intend to keep it.”

I made no move toward the amulet—an amulet belonging to a creature ancient and powerful and deadly, one who Elizabeth said would do worse than rip off my skin if I stole from him. If I took it and misplaced it, or forgot it—

“Allow me to make one thing clear.” Arthur’s eyes were sharp as daggers, forcing me to hold his gaze as he rose. “I do not give that amulet lightly. You have heard what Elizabeth said about me, and what she said was, unfortunately, true. But you may borrow it while you do what must be done, and return it to me when you are finished. If you keep it intentionally, I will know, and find you, and I’d rather avoid all that…unpleasantness.” His gaze softened as he stepped back. “But it is yours to use in the Prison.”

By the time my fingers grazed the cool metal and stone, he’d vanished.

Elizabeth hadn’t been wrong about the firedrake comparison.

* * *

 

Elizabeth kept frowning at the amulet as we hiked the slope of the Prison, so steep at times that we had to crawl on our hands and knees to keep moving upwards without falling back down. Higher and higher we reached, and I drank from the countless little brooks that wound and bubbled through the bumps and hollows in the hills of moss and grass. All around that white mist drifted, swirled and whipped by a wind whose hollow moaning drowned our crunching footsteps—and _still_ she kept peering at it, furrowing her brow.

When I caught her looking at the necklace for the tenth time, I finally dared ask, “What is it?” Maybe it was more dangerous than expected—or maybe she simple hadn’t recognized it, or something.

“He gave you that.” Not a question, though there was curiosity in it.

“Yes,” I muttered anyways, blowing my bangs out of my face. I’d tied my hair back again, but the wind kept pulling strands free and sending them into my eyes exactly when I was taking a potentially dangerous step. “Though it was a loan, not a gift.”

“Well, I didn’t peg you for the type to wear pearls, but it’s a lovely piece.” Her gaze raked me up and down, and she grinned as I brushed my hair out of my eyes for the umpteenth time. “Ah, hair trouble?”

“Shut up.” I swatted away her hand as she darted over to me, before letting out a hiss as she swiftly undid the black hair-tie and pulled it back effortlessly, knotting it back in place. “Get away from my hair!”

“But it’s so _lovely,_ darling…” Elizabeth shrugged, though, and stepped away. I clambered up another boulder before she did, noticing with no small level of irritation that the wayward strands now stayed in place. “Though you technically don’t _need_ to look presentable. Not for this.”

“It must be serious, then.” _Since you’ve come in an armor of silk and jewels for every other monster you’ve faced, and yet here you are, dressed as a warrior for the first time I’ve seen you._ I paused midstep, stretching my arms up before glancing at her. “The risk with—”

She clicked her tongue, shook her head at me. “The hills have ears, Meliodas darling. Don’t say anything you don’t want others hearing.” One gloved, delicate hand pointed to the stone beneath it. “The inmates have been there for eons; they’ve nothing better to do at this point than to listen through the earth and rock for gossip. They’ll sell any bit of information for food, sex, maybe a breath of air.”

Trapped like that—we were going into a place trapped without air, under the earth with _monsters—stop it, Meliodas, stop it, stop it._ I could do this—could master this fear. Arthur had gotten out, and stayed out, and this amulet would keep me free, too.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered finally. “About yesterday. Leaving, and—staying locked in.” I hadn’t left my bed for hours, curled there, unable to think or move. The nightmares hadn’t come that night, but the fear had, settled deep in my gut and making it impossible for me to feel anything beyond it.

Elizabeth huffed in amusement, holding out a hand to help me climb a particularly steep rock, hauling me up to where she perched at the top with a near-humiliating ease. Either I was lighter than I’d thought, or she was just… _that_ incredibly strong. It had been so long—too long—since I’d last been in the wild places of the world, since I’d used my body, relied on it. My breathing was ragged, even with my new immortality, which only served to drive that home. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” she chirped, ruffling my hair, that grin only widening as I pulled away and glared at her. “You’re here now, after all.” Though coward enough that I never would have gone without the amulet now around my neck. “I won’t dock your pay.”

I was too winded to even scowl as she winked at me, continuing the climb, the two of us only stopping once the upper face of the mountain became a wall before us, nothing but grassy slopes and moss-covered paths sweeping out far below, flowing to the churning sea. Elizabeth drew the sword from her back in a swift, fluid movement, the kind that came with practice, with training. It was stupid, really, to be surprised after all she’d told me about the Illyrians and her training, but I couldn’t help blinking at the gleaming steel that caught the stray sunbeams drifting through the fog.

“Don’t look so shocked,” she teased suddenly, and I jumped, my cheeks reddening.

“I’ve just never seen you with a weapon before.” Not even a kitchen knife—no, that wasn’t true. She’d picked up a dagger once to slit Mael’s throat at the end, had dispelled her mask once and lunged for the throat of the monster who’d held us all captive, to spare me from agony. The dagger hadn’t found its mark, though, but the way she’d handled the blade was with the calm of someone who knew what they were doing. “It threw me off.”

“Gelda would laugh herself hoarse at that.” She turned the blade slowly, almost reverently. “And then she’d drag me into the sparring ring with her.”

“Can she beat you?”

“In hand-to-hand combat? Yes.” There was no arrogance, no pride, no scoffing or declarations that she would always be the victor. “She’d have to work for it for once, but yes, she’d win.” She shrugged. “Gelda is the best warrior I’ve encountered in any court, any land. She leads my armies not only because she is my friend, but because she is an unparalleled fighter in both body and spirit.”

I didn’t doubt her claim, not after what I’d seen at that dinner, the rippling muscle and fangs that could rip a throat to shreds. And the other Illyrian… “King’s hands—the scars, I mean. Where did they come from?” Perhaps it was rude, invasive, perhaps it was cruel, but I had to know what boundaries were there, what not to mention, what lines not to cross.

Elizabeth was silent for a moment. Her voice was soft, too soft as she said, “His father was the brother of the previous High Lady of the Winter Court, his mother an Illyrian servant who was beholden to a camp-lord known for his dalliances with others. He was kind to her, that day they met in the camps, and she was charming and the two of them dazzled each other for a brief time. Then he left, unknowing of the son that would come as a result. King ended up growing up thinking that the camp-lord was his father—as did everyone around him—and his father had two legitimate sons, older than him, both cruel and spoiled. For the eleven years that King was trapped there, he was kept in the armory, in the dark, surrounded by cold, uncaring steel and cold, uncaring people. They let him out for an hour every day—let him see his mother for an hour once a week. He was not allowed to fly, or train, or to be an _Illyrian,_ to be anything his instincts told him to be.”

Her gaze was icy as she raised the sword, the point now leveled at the rock. “When he was eight, his ‘brothers’ decided it would be fun to see what happened when you mixed an Illyrian’s swift healing with oil—and fire. The warriors heard his screaming, but not quick enough to save his hands.”

Nausea swamped me, made me stagger where I stood. _Eight years old—_ to be eight years old and endure _that_ , even as an Illyrian, as a son of a Winter Court noble… I understood that coldness now, the swirling shadows and steel behind that sarcastic grin and those innocent amber eyes. _If that happened when he was eight, though…that leaves three years. Three more years in that—that_ hell. “Were they punished?”

Elizabeth face was as unfeeling as the rock and wind and sea surrounding us as she purred, lethal quiet limning her words, _“Eventually.”_

There was enough rawness in the word that I choked down my other questions— _what about his real father, can he make the wings disappear like you do, where did the steelsinger abilities come from—_ and changed the subject. “Then what about Diane?”

“Diane is who I’ll call in when the armies fail and Gelda and King are both dead.”

My blood turned to ice in my veins. “So she’s supposed to wait until then?”

Elizabeth actually barked a short laugh at that. “She’d drive me and herself insane if all she did was sit around until those two died. No, as my Third, Diane is my…court overseer. She looks after the dynamics between the Court of Nightmares and the Court of Dreams, and runs both Liones and the Hewn City. I suppose in the mortal realms, she’d be considered more of a queen than I.”

I considered that, tilting my head. “And Arthur?”

“His duties as my Second make him my political advisor, walking library, and doer of my dirty work, especially when I can’t afford to attend to something personally. I appointed him upon gaining my throne, but we were allies, friends long before that.”

“I mean—in that war where your armies fail and Gelda and King are dead and even Diane is gone.” Each word was like ice and poison on my tongue, searing it painfully as they dropped from my lips.

Elizabeth paused in her reach for the bald rock face before us. “If that day comes, I’ll find a way to break the spell on Arthur and unleash him on the world—and ask him to end me first.”

So blunt, so _honest—_ I wondered what it would be like to know that you were the most powerful of your kind and to still be unable to save your friends, wondered if perhaps I wouldn’t choose death if it came to that too. “What _is_ he?” Not High Fae, definitely not. I knew that for sure after our chat this morning, but whatever he truly was…

“Something else. Something worse than us. And if he ever finds a way to shed his prison of flesh and bone… Cauldron save us all.”

I shivered and stared up at the sheer stone wall. “I can’t climb bare rock like that.” A rapid subject change, perhaps, but Elizabeth had said that these hills had ears, and I didn’t want to be the one to bring about that end she’d spoken about, the war in which commander and spymaster and Third all fell, in which a High Lady chose to die and a Second was unleashed upon all existence.

Her lips quirked up slightly. “You don’t need to.” It shimmered as her fingers grazed it—and the wall of stone vanished entirely as she laid her hand flat against it, sweeping away with a ripple of light. Pale, carved gates stood in its place, so high their tops were lost to the mist.

Gates of bone.

* * *

 

Those bone-gates swung open soundlessly, revealing a cavern of a darkness so deep that it seemed as though the world simply vanished. There had been nothing like this Under-the-Mountain, no black so inky that it seemed to be a swirling, physical entity, nothing so endless and… _hungry_. My fingers found the amulet at my throat, gripped it tightly enough that it bit into my skin, the metal warm beneath my palm. _Arthur got out,_ I reminded myself, forcing my legs to move. I would walk out, too.

Elizabeth put a hand on my back, strong and warm, and guided me inside. Three spheres of moonlight, drawn by her power, bobbed before us, but even they couldn’t fully permeate the endless dark steadily swallowing us whole. Trapping us—trapping _me._

_No—no, no, nonono—_

_“Breathe.”_ Elizabeth’s breath tickled my ear, and I felt her arm loop around my shoulders, pressing me closer to her side. I didn’t have it in me to protest, too pathetically grateful that I wasn’t alone in this shadowy underworld. “One breath, Meliodas.”

I tried—and succeeded, for once, though the breath was shivery and shallow. “Where are the guards?” I managed to force through the tightness in my lungs, edging closer to her with a sudden jolt of panic as her arm slipped away and I was left with nothing. _Whereareyouwhereareyoupleasedon’tgo—_

“They dwell within the stone of the mountain,” she murmured back, her voice drawing me out of that sudden, brief flash of terror as her hand found mine and wrapped around it, drawing me deeper into the immortal gloom. “They only emerge to feed at the times they’re allowed, or to deal with restless prisoners. All that’s left of what they used to be are shadows of thought and an ancient spell.”

Still terrifying, if they could keep the prisoners here—creatures as strong as Arthur, worse than him—locked tightly inside. I focused on the small lights floating ahead, never looking too long at the gray walls—the walls that seemed to have hooked noses, craggy brows, sneering lips following me down, even though I knew in my heart that they were nothing but rough-hewn stone. The dry ground was clear of everything except for a few scarce pebbles, the air of everything but pure silence, interrupted by nothing but our own footsteps as we rounded a bend and the last of the light from the outside world faded, as if it had never existed at all.

I focused on my breathing, on each step down that path. I couldn’t be trapped here, couldn’t be locked in this awful, dead place. It could not hold me.

The path plunged sharply, suddenly, deep into the belly of the mountain. I clutched Elizabeth’s fingers tightly to keep from losing my footing, realizing distantly that she still clutched her sword in her free hand. “Do all the High Ladies have access?” My words, meant to distract me from the primal hunger of these shadows, seemed to be swallowed up by the void. Even the thrumming power in my veins had vanished, curling up somewhere in my very bones.

Elizabeth’s silver hair danced as she shook her head. “No. The Prison is law unto itself, was here long before Britannia and may very well be long after. It’s thought that the island might be some strange eight court, but it falls under my jurisdiction, and my blood is keyed to the gates.”

The gates of bone—they would appear only for her, then. “Could you free the inmates?”

“No. Once the sentence is given and a prisoner passes those gates…” She shrugged casually, though I could feel the flickers of regret, of unease running through the strange bond between us. “They belong to the Prison, and it will never let them out. I take sentencing people here very, very seriously.”

 “Have you ever—”

“Yes. And now is not the time to speak of it.” She squeezed my hand—an apology, as though she knew how those words had been tainted for me, and a warning not to push her. Not on this.

I stayed silent, and we followed the path down through the gloom. There were no doors in the Prison, no lights, no sounds, not even the drip of water or the rustling of wind running through the tunnels. I could feel them, though—feel them sleeping, pacing, running hands and claws over the other side of the walls. The prisoners.

They were ancient, and cruel in a way I had never known, not even with Mael. They were infinite, and patient, and had learned the language of darkness and stone. I could feel it humming in my bones, knew it like the back of my hand, this strange and awful sense of power, and hated that I could feel their souls through the walls.

“How long,” I breathed. “How long was he in here?” I didn’t dare say his name, but someone like that—full of life, wild and refined, terrifying and sweet, dark and yet bright—being forced _here…_

“King looked once, dug into the archives in our oldest temples and libraries. All he found was a vague mention that he went in before Britannia was split into these seven courts—and emerged once they were established. I don’t know how long, exactly, but a few millennia is my guess.”

Horror roiled in my gut. “You never asked?”

She shrugged again. “Why bother? He’ll tell me when he wants to or when it’s necessary, whichever comes first.”

“Where did he come from?” The brooch she’d gifted him, like some kind of tribute—such a small gift, for a monster who had once dwelled here.

“I don’t know. There are legends that claim when the world was born, there were…rips in the fabric of the realms, between this world and whatever others might be out there. They say that in the chaos of forming, creatures from those other worlds could walk through one of those rips and enter another world. But the rips closed at will, and the creatures could become trapped, with no way back to the land they’d called home.

It was more horrifying than I could imagine—both the idea of monsters walking between worlds, and the terror of being trapped in another realm. “You think he was one of them?”

“I think that he is the only one of his kind, and there are no records of others ever having existed, which only points further to that theory. Even the truth-telling Suriel have numbers, however small. But he—and some of those in the Prison—most likely came from somewhere else. And they have been looking for a way home for a long, long time.”

I was shivering beneath the fur-lined leather, my breath clouding in front of me as she gave my hand another gentle squeeze. Down and down we went, time slowly losing its grip on us. Hours or days, we could’ve walked, and we halted only when my useless, wasted body demanded water. Even while I drank, she didn’t release my hand—as if the stone would swallow me up forever if she let go. I made sure those breaks were swift and rare.

Still we went, further, deeper, the darkness somehow growing blacker and blacker with every step. Only the lights and her hand kept me from feeling as if I were about to free-fall into endless dark. For a moment, the reek of my old dungeon cell cloyed in my nose, and I swore that the crunch of moldy hay was tickling my cheek—

Elizabeth’s hand tightened on my own. “Just a bit farther.”

“We must be near the bottom by now.” _Please let us be near the bottom by now._

There was a dry, mirthless chuckle. “Past it, actually. The Bone Carver is caged within the roots of the mountain.”

“Who is he? _What_ is he?” I’d only been briefed on what I should say—nothing on what to expect from a creature that had all of the Inner Circle looking so dead-eyed and grim. Most likely to keep me from panicking too much, but the fact that we were close to his cage with no idea what to think about what awaited me was starting to awaken that fear now.

“No one knows—not exactly, at least. He’ll appear as he wants to appear.”

“Shape-shifter?” Like _her_ , then—but perhaps more potent in his abilities.

“Of a sort.” I could sense more than see her grimace as she said, “He’ll appear to you as one thing and to me as something completely different—beast or Fae or human, male or female or neither.”

I forced myself not to turn around and bolt up that dark path. “Does he have a name? Beyond—beyond the Bone Carver, I mean?”

She glanced at me, her lips twitching into what seemed to be a reluctant smile. “Yes, actually, though we’d better not say it until we’re standing before him. As for how he got the name…you’ll see.” Elizabeth halted before a smooth slab of stone, the hall still continuing behind her—down, down into the ageless dark. The air here was tight, compact, and even the puffs of condensation from my breath onto the cold air seemed to die more swiftly.

Elizabeth at last released my hand, only to lay hers once more on the bare stone. It rippled beneath her palm, forming—a door.

Like the gates above, it was of ivory—of _bone._ And in its surface were etched countless images: flora and fauna, oceans and skies, stars and moons, infants and skeletons, creatures fair and foul, many of which I’d never seen, never _fathomed—_

It swung away. The cell was pitch-black, hardly distinguishably from the hall.

“I have carved doors for every prisoner in this place,” said a flat, calm voice within, “but my own remains my favorite.”

“I’d have to agree,” Elizabeth muttered. “You’ve always had an eye for detail.” She stepped inside, the light bobbing ahead to reveal a girl of no more than eight with wild silver hair, eyes that seemed to be hewn from emeralds taking in Elizabeth before sliding to where I lurked in the doorway. Elizabeth reached into a bag I hadn’t realized she’d been carrying—no, one she’d summoned from whatever pocket between realms she used for storage. She chucked an object toward the girl, who peered down at it before arching an eyebrow at her. White gleamed as it clacked on the rough stone floor—another bone, long and sturdy, but jagged on one end.

“The calf-bone that made the final kill when Meliodas slew the Middengard Wyrm,” Elizabeth said by way of explanation.

My blood turned to ice in my veins. There’d been many bones in those trenches I’d used to lay my trap for the ancient serpent—I hadn’t noticed which one in particular had ended the Wyrm. Or thought that anyone else would, for that matter.

“Come inside,” was all the Bone Carver said, and there was no innocence, no kindness in that sweet child’s voice.

I took one step in, and no more.

“It has been an age,” the shapeshifter said, practically gobbling down the sight of me, “since someone new came into this world. Since someone but your four pets visited me,” she added to Elizabeth, sounding almost petulant. “Is it too much to ask for some company while I carve?”

The High Lady’s lips merely curved into a dazzling smile. “Lovely to see you too, Gowther.”

The girl—the Bone Carver— _Gowther—_ gave a click of the tongue before shifting, her body rippling and giving way to a more masculine form, that of an adult. Tawny eyes blinked innocently at me from behind rectangular glasses, hair of a bright magenta crowning his head as the lovely, deceptively delicate male gave an equally dazzling grin of his own.

“Hello,” I breathed.

Gowther’s smile was a mockery of kindness, of innocence. “Are you frightened?”

“Yes,” I said. _Never lie—_ that had been Elizabeth’s first command before we came down here. _Never lie to the Bone Carver, father of liars, for believe me, he will know._

The male stood, but kept to the other side of the cell, those golden eyes inquisitive. “Meliodas,” he murmured, cocking his head to the side. The orb of faelight gilded the bright hair—the only color in this unending void—silver. “ _Meh-lee-oh-dahs,”_ he said again, drawing out the syllables as though he could taste each one on his tongue; it took everything in me not to shudder at the sound of that tongue—certainly not fae, definitely not human—rasping over my name as though it could be devoured and stolen away. At last, he straightened his head, eyes gleaming. “Where did you go when you died?”

“A question for a question,” I replied, as I’d been instructed over breakfast.

The Bone Carver’s eyes sparked, and he inclined his head to Elizabeth. “You were always smarter than your forebears. Very well, fledgling fae. Tell me where you went, what you saw—and I will answer your question.” Elizabeth gave me a subtle nod, but her eyes were wary. Because what the carver had asked…

I had to calm my breathing to think—to remember.

There was blood and death and _agony,_ pain like I had never known, and screaming, my own screaming—and he was breaking me, killing me slowly, so slowly, and all I wanted was for it to end, and Elizabeth was there, roaring in fury as I died, Zaneli begging for my life on her knees before his throne… But the pain had been too much, more than I could bear, and I wanted it to be over, I wanted it all to _stop—_

Elizabeth had gone rigid while she monitored Gowther, as if those memories were flowing freely past the mental shields I’d tested this morning, made sure they stayed perfectly in place. I wondered if she thought I’d give up here and now—if I thought I might give up when we got this far.

My hands curled into fists. I had lived, had gotten out and been Made stronger for it. I would get out today.

“I heard the crack,” I said. Elizabeth’s head whipped toward me, and I could’ve sworn there was horror there, horror and grief, but I pressed on. “I heard the crack when Mael broke my neck. It was in my ears, but also inside my skull—and then I was gone before I felt anything but the first lash of pain.” The Bone Carver’s golden eyes seemed to glow brighter.

“And then it was dark—a different kind of darkness than this, less drowning and more…cradling, comforting. But there was a…thread,” I said, and somehow putting the memory into words made it clearer, brighter, and that much less terrifying. “There was a tether, and I yanked on it—and suddenly I could see. Not through my eyes, but—but hers.” As I had that day in Liones, I realized as I inclined my head toward her, uncurling the fingers of my tattooed hand, the mark of the bond that had saved my life. “And I knew that I was dead, and this tiny scrap of spirit was all that was left of me, clinging to the thread of our bargain.”

“But was there anyone there?” Gowther demanded. “Were you seeing anything beyond?”

“There was only that bond in the darkness.” Elizabeth had gone pale, her mouth a tight line. “And when I was Made anew, I followed that bond back—to me. I knew that home was on the other end of it. There was light, then, like swimming up through sparkling wine—”

“Were you afraid?”

I shook my head—the fear had passed by then, and I felt nothing but hope and longing—for _her,_ before my world had crumbled into a hell that seemed all the worse for loving the perpetrator. “All I wanted was to return to—to the people around me. I wanted it badly enough that there was no room left for fear. The worst had happened already, and the darkness was calm and quiet—not a bad thing to fade into, but I wanted to go home…and I followed the bond there.”

“There was no other world,” Gowther pushed.

“If there was or is, I did not see it.”

“No light, no portal?”

 _What do you know of death? Where is it that you want to go?_ I barely managed to hold back the questions, instead shaking my head. “There was only peace and darkness.”

“Did you have a body?”

“No.”

“Did—”

“That’s quite enough from you,” Elizabeth purred, the sound like velvet over sharpest steel, silk slithering over ice and moonstone. “You said a question for a question. Now you’ve asked…” She made a show of doing a tally on her fingers, counting each one with a look somewhere between boredom and amusement. “Six.”

The Bone Carver leaned back against the wall with a sigh, sliding into a sitting position. “It is a rare day when I meet someone who has come back from true death. Forgive me, High Lady, for wanting to peer behind the curtain.” He waved a delicate hand in my direction. “Ask it, boy.”

 _Here goes…just about everything._ “If there was no body—nothing but a bit of bone, a scrap of flesh, would there be a way to resurrect that person?” I didn’t waste time marveling at the steadiness of my voice. “Could a new body be grown, their soul put into it?”

Those golden eyes flashed. “Was the soul preserved somehow? Contained?”

The ring of bone and frozen eye flashed in my mind, the soul Mael had trapped inside to witness every crime, every horrible, depraved thing he’d done since the War. “There is no way,” the Bone Carver murmured, interrupting my thoughts, and it took everything in me not to sigh in relief.

“Unless…” He steepled his fingers together, bounced the tip of each of each other in quick succession before bringing them together again, hands like pale, twitchy insects. “You know the story of the creation of the world, correct? Before High Fae, before humankind, there was a Cauldron, and when held in the hands of a figure known only as the Mother, all life flowed from it. They say all magic was contained inside it, that the world was born in it—and that when it fell into the wrong hands, great and terrible deeds were done with it. Things were _forged_ with it, such wicked things that the Cauldron was eventually stolen back at the highest of prices. It could not be destroyed, for it had Made all things, and if it were broken, then all it had created would cease to be. It was hidden instead—and forgotten.” Those golden eyes were intent behind the lenses of his glasses. “Only with that Cauldron could something that is dead be reforged like that.”

Elizabeth’s face was once more a mask of icy calm, a statue carved of marble and moonstone and draped in steel. “Where did they hide it?”

“Tell me a secret no one knows, Lady of Night, and I’ll tell you mine.”

I braced myself for whatever horrible truth was about to come my way. Elizabeth’s lips slowly curled into a grin, though, and she purred, “My right eye always aches in the dry days of winter; I nearly lost it during the War and it’s hurt ever since.”

The Bone Carver barked a laugh, even as I gaped at Elizabeth. _Fae trickster indeed._ “You always were my favorite,” he said, giving a smile I would never for a moment think was innocent. “Very well. The Cauldron was hidden at the bottom of a frozen lake in Germania—” Elizabeth began to turn toward me, as if she’d head there right now, but Gowther added, “And vanished a long time ago.”

She halted. Gowther, still smiling, continued, “I don’t know where it went to—or where it might be now. Millennia before you were born, High Lady, the three feet on which it stands were successfully cleaved from its base in an attempt to fracture some of its power. It worked—barely. Removing the feet was like cutting off the first knuckle of a finger. Annoying, of course, but you could still use the rest with some difficulty. The feet were hidden at three different temples—Istar, Tintagel, and Vaizel. If _they_ have gone missing, it is likely that the Cauldron is active again—and that the wielder wants it at full power, and not a wisp of it missing.

That answered why those Night Court temples had been ransacked—and _who_ had attacked them as well. If Erebus had the Cauldron, then they had gotten the feet on which it once stood to restore it to its full power. I forced myself not to glance at Elizabeth as she said, “I don’t suppose you’d tell us _who_ now has the Cauldron.”

Gowther pointed one delicate finger at me. “Promise me that you’ll give me his bones when he dies and I’ll think about it.” I stiffened, waited for her to make the bargain, to look toward me in question, but the Bone Carver merely laughed when her eyes narrowed, hardening to sapphire. “No, I don’t think even you would promise that, Elizabeth.”

I might have called the look on Elizabeth’s face a warning. “Thank you for your help,” she said, her voice sweet as sugar as she placed a hand on my back to guide me out.

It must be the King of Erebus; I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d want to use such a source of infinite power, who would risk Elizabeth’s wrath to do it. But if there was some other player on this strange, immortal stage, a new piece on the board… I turned again to the creature. “There was a choice in Death.”

Those eyes guttered with deep, gold fire. Elizabeth’s hand contracted on my back, but remained, warm and steady, shifting with every breath I took. I wondered if the touch was to reassure her more than me—to remind her that I was still breathing and Mael was not, that we were out, and alive, and still fighting.

“I knew,” I continued, “that I could drift away into the dark. I made the choice to hold on, to fight for a bit longer, but I knew that if I wanted to, I could have faded. And maybe it would be a new world beyond that darkness, a realm of rest and peace, yet I wasn’t ready for it—not to go there alone. But I knew there was something else waiting beyond that dark. Something good.”

Those tawny eyes flared brighter. Then the Bone Carver said, “You know who has the Cauldron—I see it in both of you. You know who is pillaging the temples. You only came here to confirm what you have long suspected.”

“The King of Erebus.”

 Gowther said nothing more, as if waiting—waiting for me to give him another truth. So I offered up another shattered piece of my soul, burning and flickering and ripe for the taking. “When Mael made me kill those two faeries, if the third hadn’t been Zaneli, I would have put the dagger in my own heart at the end.”

Elizabeth went still.

“I knew there was no coming back from what I’d done,” I said, wondering if the shining flame in the carver’s eyes might burn my ruined soul to ash, “And I decided there that once I broke their curse, once I knew I’d saved the people I cared for, I just wanted enough time to turn that dagger on myself. I only decided to _live_ and cling to that thread to this world when he killed me, and I knew I had not done enough—that I had not done whatever it was I’d been born to do, become whoever I was made to become.” I dared a glance at Elizabeth when I finished, and there was something like devastation on her inhumanly beautiful face. It was gone in a blink, though—as though I’d imagined it.

Gowther’s voice was shockingly gentle as he said, “With the Cauldron, you could do more than raise the dead. You could shatter the wall.” The wall, that barrier of magic separating the Fae realms from the human ones—the Cauldron could bring that down and unleash faeries like those of Erebus on them, on my human family. Horror crept through my veins as he went on to explain, “It is likely that Erebus has been quiet for so many years because he was hunting the Cauldron, learning its secrets. Resurrection of a… _specific_ individual might very well be his first test when the feet are reunited—and now he knows that the Cauldron is pure energy, power in its most concentrated form. Like any magic, it can be depleted, and so he will let it rest, feed it more energy, more power so that it will be even more devastating when he unleashes it again.”

Power—we had to stop raw, untamed power or else steal it back, and destroy Erebus in the process. “Is there a way to stop it,” I breathed.

Silence. Expectant, waiting silence.

Elizabeth’s voice was hoarse as she rasped, “Don’t offer him one more—”

“When the Cauldron was made,” Gowther interrupted, “its creator used the last of the molten ore to forge a book, one named by history as the Book of Breathings. In it, written between the carved words, are the spells to negate the Cauldron’s power—or bend its will to yours entirely. But after the War, that book was halved, one piece going to the Fae, the other to the six human kings. It was part of the Treaty, purely symbolic, as the Cauldron had been lost for centuries and was considered mere myth. The Book was believed to be harmless, since like called to like—and only that which was Made can speak those spells, summon its power. No creature born of the earth could possibly wield it, so the High Ladies and humans of the time dismissed it as little more than a historical heirloom, better suited to a museum than some treasure trove.” His eyes narrowed to amused slits as something dawned on Elizabeth’s face, as the realization sank into me. “If the Book were in the hands of someone reforged…you would have to _test_ this theory, of course, but it might be possible.

“So now the High Lady of Summer possesses the piece of the Fae, and the reigning mortal kings have the other entombed in their shining palace by the sea. Britannia’s half is guarded, protected with blood-spells keyed to Summer herself. The one belonging to the mortal kings…” He shrugged. “For a species with such short lives, humans have always been terrifyingly innovative, devious and crafty. They used our own kind to spell their half of the Book, to bind it—so that if, let’s say, a High Lady were to winnow into their castle to steal it, the Book would melt into ore and be lost. It must be freely given by a mortal king, with no trickery or magic involved.” A little laugh, one that felt like spiders crawling up my skin. “Such clever, lovely creatures, humans.”

He seemed lost in ancient memory, for a moment, eyes glazed over—and then he shook his head, grinning wickedly. “Reunite both halves of the Book of Breathings, and you will be able to nullify the powers of the Cauldron. Hopefully _before_ it returns to full strength and shatters that precious, peacekeeping wall.”

I didn’t bother saying thank you, not for the information he’d given us—not with what I’d given up to take that knowledge. Elizabeth’s attention was still there, too, lingering on me as I turned toward the exit. As if she’d suspected, but never fully believed just how badly I’d broken in that moment when Mael had struck.

She turned with me, her hand sliding from my back to twine her fingers with my own. The touch was light, gentle, grounding me before I could float off into that darkness and never return. Suddenly, I had no strength to even grip it back.

The Bone Carver picked up the bone Elizabeth had brought him and weighed it in those delicate hands, those fingers like twitching spider-legs. I could sense his smile, and it was ghastly. “I shall carve your death in here, Meliodas—and your Making.”

The words followed me as we walked up and up into that darkness, through slumbering stone and the ancient evils whispering and watching on the other side of locked doors of bone. It wasn’t until the shadows began to fade to gray that I whispered, “What did you see?”

She knew what I meant immediately, in that strange, uncanny way of hers. “You first.”

“A little girl—maybe seven or eight, with silver hair and green eyes.”

Elizabeth shuddered—the most human gesture I’d ever seen from her. It gave me the strength to finally tighten my fingers around hers as the whispering wind reached us again. “What did you see?” I repeated.

“Vivian.” Her eyes were fixed on the opening sky before us as the darkness crawled back into that endless void. “He appeared as Vivian, exactly as I last saw her: facing Mael when they fought to the death.”

I didn’t want to learn how the Bone Carver knew who we’d come to ask about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loved it? Hated it? Please leave a comment or review below! Reader feedback is what helps keep us fanfic writers going, and I'd love it if you'd share your thoughts with me!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for an enlightening discussion with Elizabeth's friends--which usually involves drinks, swearing, mockery, and seriousness. This time, it involves only three out of four.

“Arthur’s right,” Elizabeth drawled, leaning against the threshold of the townhouse’s cozy sitting room; the fire was crackling in the hearth, blankets waiting on a chair, all the curtains thrown open to let the sunlight in. I wanted nothing more than to bury myself in the warmth after that time spent in darkness, to banish the bone-cold mountain from my mind. “You _are_ like cats waiting for me to feed you. Perhaps I should buy treats.”

Gelda gave her a vulgar gesture from where she sprawled on the cough before the hearth, legs resting on Diane’s lap as the brunette flipped idly through a book I was certain she wasn’t actually reading. Though everything about the commander’s powerful, muscled body suggested that she was at ease, there was a tightness in her jaw, a wound-up energy like a snake waiting to strike that told me they had indeed been awaiting Elizabeth’s return, probably for quite some time.

King was perched in the bay window, tossing a dagger up and catching it easily as he lounged against a massive green pillow—the resting form of his soul-bound weapon, I recalled. His gaze was fixed on the light flurries of snow dusting the lawn and street behind him. Arthur…was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or not; after all, this meant I’d have to hunt him down to give him back the amulet—if Elizabeth’s warnings and his own words were to be believed (which, I suspected, they definitely were).

Still damp and cold from the mist and wind and awful drizzle that chased us down from the Prison, I strode for the armchair across from the couch, snatching up one of those sunbeam-soft blankets and wrapping it around myself like a cape as I settled into the soft chair. Like so much of the furniture here, it had been built to accommodate Illyrian wings, but since I was one of the handful of wingless now permitted to live in this townhouse, it just meant more room for me. I stretched my stiff limbs toward the fire, and stifled a groan at the delicious heat.

“How’d it go?” Diane asked, shoving Gelda’s legs off her lap—and nearly the rest of Gelda herself off the couch. The Illyrian warrior scrabbled for purchase, found it, and curled against the pillows, shooting a glare at the now-smirking Third. No gown today (though she looked as stunning as ever), just practical black pants and a thick purple sweater, though Gelda was still wearing her armor.

Elizabeth sighed. “Gowther is a busybody gossip who likes to pry into other people’s business far too often, even for a creature that lives alone.”

“I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” King called from his place in the window, catching the dagger by the hilt yet again before sheathing it up his sleeve.

Elizabeth shot him a dirty look. “ _But_ he can also be helpful when he decides it’s worth his time. And it seems we need to start doing what we do best.”

I flexed my numbed fingers before stretching them out to the warmth of the fire, content to let them discuss as I listened, needing a moment to reel myself back in, to shut out what I’d revealed to the Bone Carver—what I’d barely admitted to myself until those moments. And to use that moment of thought to process what he suggested I might actually be asked to do with that book, the abilities I, as someone Made, might possess.

So Elizabeth told them of the Cauldron, and the reason behind the temple pillagings, to no shortage of swearing and questions—and did it all without revealing a word of what I had offered in exchange for the intel. King left the window to ask the most questions of the lot, his face and voice slipping into that unreadable, cold quiet. Gelda, surprisingly, kept quiet—as though the general understood that the steelsinger would know what information was necessary, and was busy assessing it for her own forces. When she finished speaking, King offered, “I’ll contact my sources in the Summer Court about where the half of the Book of Breathings is hidden. I can fly into the human world myself to figure out where the kings are keeping their half before we ask them for it.”

“No need,” Elizabeth answered, though she inclined her head slightly. “I don’t trust this information, even with your sources, with anyone outside of this room—save for Arthur.”

King’s eyes flashed, hands tightening into fists. “They can be trusted. I would not offer this to anyone I thought would put anyone here at risk—"

“We’re not taking risks where this is concerned.” She held that icy amber gaze, and I could almost hear the silent words she added. _It is no judgement or reflection on you, King. Not at all._

The only emotions King yielded were a spark of understanding and a flash of disbelief as he nodded, hands unfurling. Diane seemed to catch them as they swept across his face and vanished, her violet eyes suddenly overbright as she angled her head slightly. “So what _do_ you have planned, Lizzie?” she demanded—perhaps for King’s sake. Hard to figure out, these two—the steelsinger who only seemed to soften for the vivacious Third of the High Lady, something hanging taut in the air between them.

My attention slid back to Elizabeth as she flicked an invisible speck of dust off her fighting leathers. When she lifted her head, those sapphire eyes were glacial. “The King of Erebus sacked one of our temples to get a missing piece of the Cauldron. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an act of war—an indication that His Majesty has no intention in wooing me this time.” _This time—_ because Mael had been Erebus, and had come here under a guise of peace before wreaking destruction on all Britannia, and had seduced the High Ladies with promises of peace before removing his mask and revealing the monster.

“He likely remembers our allegiance to the humans in the War, anyway,” Gelda agreed. “He wouldn’t jeopardize his plans while trying to sway you, and I’d bet anything that some of Mael’s lackeys reported directly to him about Under-the-Mountain—about how it ended, I mean.” She swallowed thickly, as if she knew, had seen it somehow—or just knew her sister-in-arms well enough that she had seen it play out in her mind as soon as the news reached her.

When Elizabeth had tried to kill Mael—for killing and torturing me. I lowered my hands from the fire, twisted to give them more of my attention.

“Indeed,” Elizabeth acknowledged, never blinking at the words, the memory—strong enough that she didn’t falter, not like I would have. “But this means Erebus’s forces have already successfully infiltrated our lands—without detection. I plan to return the favor.”

 _Mother above._ Gelda and Diane just grinned with feral delight as I stared, unable to keep some of my shock from creeping over my face. “How?” the latter asked.

Elizabeth left the threshold of the room, crossing her arms as she shifted her weight to lean on the wall. “It will require careful planning, of course. But if the Cauldron is in Erebus, then to Erebus we must go—to take it back, or use the Book to nullify it.”

Erebus—the land that had shaped Mael into the monster that he was, a land full of people that were _worse_ than him. Some cowardly, pathetic part of me was already trembling, though I managed not to let it spread beyond my heart.

“Erebus likely has as many wards and shields around it as we have here,” King countered, drifting over to perch on the back of the couch. “We’d need to find a way to get through them undetected first.”

A slight nod, pale hands tucking themselves neatly into the pockets of a dark jacket still wrapped around her lean form. “Which is why we start now, while we hunt for the Book. So when we get both halves, we can move swiftly—before word can spread that we even possess it.”

Gelda nodded, lips twisted in a grim smile. “So you already have a plan to retrieve it, then?”

Elizabeth’s laugh was dark, almost mischievous. “You know me so well, sister. These objects are spelled to the individual currently possessing them with blood magic. They can only be unlocked using the High Lady’s own power—so in addition to his uses regarding the handling of the Book of Breathings itself, it seems we possibly have our own magical book detector.”

They all looked at me, four burning gazes waiting for my words, and I forced myself not to cringe. “I’d prefer _not_ to be called the magical-book-detector. Especially since the Bone Carver said that I _might_ have those abilities.” Some small part of me still hoped I didn’t, but if everything else was true…

Indeed, Elizabeth was smirking. “You have in your very soul a kernel of all our power—like having seven thumbprints. If we’ve hidden something, made or protected it with our power, no matter where it has been concealed, you will be able to track it through that very magic.”

“You can’t know that for sure.” Not yet, anyways—I was still untried in that regard, even if the fire and frost, the wind and darkness, the shapeshifting were all there.

Her grin only _widened._ “Not yet, darling—but there _is_ a way to test it.”

“Oh, here we go,” Gelda grumbled. Diane sent King a glare this time, most likely a warning to tell him _not_ to volunteer this time. The spymaster just gave her a look somewhere between hurt and incredulous, the pillow of Chastiefoile morphing into a spear even as I watched in mildly horrified awe.

I might have lounged in my chair to watch their battle of wills quite contentedly had Elizabeth not said, “With your abilities, Meliodas, you might be able to find the half of the Book at the Summer Court _and_ break the surrounding wards without detection. But I’m not going to take the carver’s word for it, or bring you there without testing you first—not because I doubt your abilities, but to make sure that when it counts, when we need to get that book, you— _we_ do not fail. So we’re going on a little trip to see if you can find a valuable object of mine that I’ve been missing for quite some time.”

 _“Shit,”_ Diane said, plunging her hands into the thick folds of her sweater. “Don’t say what I think you’re about to, Lizzie.”

“She’s going to say it,” Gelda muttered. “You _know_ she’s going to say it.”

That didn’t sound good—not good at all. “Where?”

It was King who answered, his eyes accusing as he stared Elizabeth down. “She’s sending you to the Weaver, Meliodas.”

Elizabeth held up a hand as Gelda opened her mouth, looking somewhere between horrified and irritated. “The test,” she said, “will be to see if Meliodas can identify the object of mine in the Weaver’s trove. When we get to the Summer Court, Isolde might have spelled her half of the Book to look different, _feel_ different.”

“By the Cauldron, Elizabeth,” Diane hissed, uncurling from her relaxed position and setting both feet on the plush carpet. “Are you out of your mind?”

“My thoughts _exactly,”_ King snapped, and I could’ve sworn hoarfrost crackled around him for a moment as the metal from his knife leaked from the sheathe and re-formed into a swirling chain. “There’s no way—”

“Who is the Weaver?” I pushed.

The chain dissolved, swept back into the shape of a knife that he pocketed once more. “An ancient, wicked creature,” King said, and I surveyed the faint scars on his wings, this neck, and wondered how many such things he’d encountered in his immortal life, if they were any worse than the people who had shoved him into darkness and fire and blades. “Who should remain _unbothered,”_ he added in Elizabeth’s direction, scowling. “Find another way to test his abilities.”

Elizabeth merely shrugged and looked to me. My choice—it was always my choice with her these days, my choice whether I wanted to go through or give up, leave or stay. Yet she hadn’t let me go back to the Spring Court during those two visits…because she knew how badly I needed to get away from it?

I gnawed on my lower lip, weighing the risks, waiting to feel any kernel of fear, anger—something beyond the exhaustion. This afternoon had drained everything, though, any reserve of emotion, any fears I still had left. “The Bone Carver, the Weaver…do we have to wait to meet _everyone_ before we can call them by a given name?”

The tension in the room relaxed, Gelda snorting in amusement as Diane settled back into the sofa cushions, the cold around King vanishing as he flopped back onto the once-again-a-pillow Chastiefoile. Only Elizabeth, it seemed, understood that it hadn’t entirely been a joke. Her face was tight, like she knew precisely how tired I was, knew exactly why I wasn’t quaking in fear at the thought of this Weaver. Like she knew that after the Bone Carver, what I’d told it… I could feel nothing at all.

She just tilted her head, though, and said to me, “What about adding one more name to the list, darling?” I didn’t particularly like the sound of that—and Diane said as much, shaking her head with something like amusement.

“Emissary,” Elizabeth said, ignoring her cousin, blue eyes fixed wholly on me. “Emissary to the Night Court—for the human realm.” Her lips twitched up slightly. “I did tell you I was offering you a job—might as well have a name for it, hm?”

King blinked. “There hasn’t been an emissary for this court in five hundred years, Elizabeth.”

“Then it’s high time we got one. Especially with those ancients are stirring again, and the first human-turned-immortal since then has appeared.” She held my gaze, bright and burning. “The human world must be as prepared as we are, and with the King of Erebus planning to shatter the wall and unleash his forces upon them, they’ll need all the help they can get. We need the other half of the Book of Breathings from those mortal kings—and if we can’t use magic to influence them, then they’re going to have to bring it to us.”

More silence. On the street beyond the frosted glass of those bright windows, wisps of snow brushed past, dusting the cobblestones.

Elizabeth jerked her chin at me. “You are an immortal faerie—with a human heart. Even as such, you might very well set foot on the continent and be… hunted for it. So we set up a base in neutral territory. In a place where humans trust—not us, but _you,_ Meliodas. A place where other humans might risk going to meet with you to hear the voice of Britannia after five centuries.”

There was only one place that fit that description, one place with people who might trust me even after becoming High Fae. “My family’s estate.”

“Mother’s tits, Elizabeth,” Gelda burst out, wings flaring wide enough to nearly knock over the ceramic vase on the side table next to her. “You think we can just take over his family’s house, demand that of them? Even if they don’t remember Zaneli kidnapping their brother—” I winced at that— “all they’ll know are the stories about us as monsters.”

Zeldris hadn’t wanted any dealings with the Fae, and Estarossa was so gentle, so kind and sweet…how could I bring them into this?

“The land,” Diane countered, reaching over to nudge the vase back into place, “will run red with blood, Gelda, regardless of what we do with his family. It is now a matter of _where_ that blood will flow—and how much will spill. How much human blood we can _save_.”

Maybe it made me a cowardly fool, but I couldn’t help saying, “The Spring Court—it borders the wall—”

“The wall stretches across the sea. We’ll fly in offshore,” Elizabeth said without so much as blinking at my halting words. “I won’t risk discovery from any court, though word might spread quickly enough once we arrive. I know it won’t be easy, Meliodas, but if there’s any way you could convince those kings—”

Any way I could save the humans, my brothers, I would take. Even if we’d had to pass through Spring, I would have found a way, but I’d had to know before—before confirming that I could. “I’ll do it,” I said. The body of Alioni Beddor, broken and bleeding, nailed to a wall of iron by Mael when I’d given his name in place of my own to Elizabeth when she’d crashed a dinner with Zaneli and Jenna during that first life—a name I’d given in a selfish desire to keep myself safe and out of reach—flashed in my vision, making my fingers curl into fists. Mael had done that not just to an innocent who had no had the misfortune of having a name that was easy to remember, but to anyone who dared cross him—and anyone who _bored_ him on top of it, and he’d been one of the commanders. One of many. The King of Erebus had to be horrible beyond reckoning to be his master. If those people got their hands on my brothers… “They won’t be happy about it, but I’ll make Estarossa and Zeldris do it.”

I didn’t have the nerve to ask Elizabeth if she could simply manipulate them to agree to help us if they refused, the nerve to wonder whether I’d rip her throat out if she tried or if I’d let it happen to keep them safe. I wondered, though, if her powers would work on Zeldris when even Zaneli’s glamour, so effective against everyone else who ever knew me, had crumbled against the steel of his mind.

“Then it’s settled,” Elizabeth said. None of the Inner Circle looked particularly happy—I didn’t _feel_ particularly happy—but their jaws were all set with grim resolve. “Once Meliodas darling returns from the Weaver, we’ll bring Erebus to its knees.”

* * *

 

Elizabeth and the others were gone that night—where, exactly, I wasn’t told, and I didn’t have the energy left to ask. After the events of the day, I barely finished devouring the food Vervada and Risling brought to my room before I tumbled into sleep.

I dreamed of a long, white bone, carved with horrifying accuracy: my face, twisted in agony and despair, the ash knife in my hand, a pool of blood leaking away from two corpses—corpses _I’d_ made, _I_ had left fallen, their souls gone and blood on my hands—

But I awoke to the watery light of the winter dawn, my stomach still full from the night before. No nausea, no blinding terror, just…another early morning, my mind still foggy from sleep and a strange contentment slowing my movements.

That contentment vanished as Elizabeth knocked on my door, a single, sharp rap that made me jolt out of bed. I’d barely stumbled over to the door, still yawning, and opened it before she stalked inside like a midnight whirlwind, tossing a belt hung with wicked daggers onto the foot of the bed. “Hurry up, sunshine,” she chirped, flinging open the doors of the armoire and yanking out my fighting leathers. Those landed on the bed, too, as I stared dumbfounded at her. “We should be gone before the sun rises fully.”

“Why?” I inquired, narrowing my eyes at her back—her _bare_ back, no wings in sight. _Why not today?_

“The strange thing about immortals, Meliodas, is that even with our ageless patience, we can move _very_ quickly when we need to.” She dug out my socks and boots, set them by the footboard before resuming her rummaging. “Once the King of Erebus realizes that someone is searching for the Book of Breathings to nullify the powers of the Cauldron, then his agents will begin hunting for it too. That window of secrecy grows ever-smaller, so we must make haste.”

“You suspected this,” I reminded her, reaching reluctantly for the leathers. I hadn’t had the chance to discuss it wither her last night, but now… “The Cauldron, the king, the Book—you went to the Bone Carver to confirm it, but you were waiting for _me.” Why?_

“Had you agreed to work with me two months ago, I would have you taken to the Bone Carver that very day to see if he confirmed my suspicions about your talents.” She stood up again, closing the armoire doors. “But the best-laid plans are said to often go awry, and this one _definitely_ did.”

Yes, it most certainly had. “That’s why you insisted on the reading lessons,” I realized as she turned toward me. “So that if your suspicions were true and I could harness the Book, I could actually _read_ it—or a translation of whatever’s inside.” A book pre-dating Britannia itself might very well be written in an entirely different language. A different alphabet, even.

“Again,” she said, now striding for the dresser, “had you started to work with me, I would’ve told you why. I couldn’t risk discovery otherwise.” She paused with a hand on the knob. “You should have learned to read regardless, and I’m surprised that no one _there_ tried to teach you. But yes, when I told you it served those ‘various purposes’ of mine, I meant _this.”_ Blue eyes flicked to me. “Do you blame me for it?”

“No,” I said, and meant it. “But I’d prefer to be notified of any future schemes.”

“Duly noted, O Emissary.” She moved to yank open the drawers—and, realizing what that drawer contained, I shrieked and threw myself in front of her. Had I really been so out of it from sleep that I was about to let her rifle through my _undergarments?_

Her laughter echoed through the room, and I could feel myself reddening. “Well, that settles it—you’re definitely made to be a fighter with that speed of yours. Also, I didn’t know someone’s face could get _that_ red.”

I whirled, snatching something out of the drawer and brushing past her, blushing furiously as I gathered up the rest of the clothes. “You’re drooling on the carpet.” I slammed the bathroom door before she could respond, though I could _feel_ her amusement through the bond.

Elizabeth was waiting as I emerged, already warm within the fur-lined leather, my hair pulled back with one of the ties she’d given me. She held up the belt of knives, and I studied the loops and straps, tilting my head up at her. “No swords, no bows and arrows,” she informed me. She herself was wearing her own Illyrian fighting leathers—that simple, brutal sword strapped down her spine.

“But knives are fine?”

Elizabeth knelt and spread the web of leather and steel, beckoning for me to stick a leg through one loop. I did as instructed, ignoring the brush of her steady hands on my thigh as I stepped through the other loop and she began tightening and buckling things. “She will not notice a knife, as she has knives in her cottage for eating and for her work. But things that are out of place, objects that have not been there—a sword, a bow and arrow, an axe—she might sense, and I would prefer to give you a better chance of getting out undetected.”

“What about me?”

She tightened a strap with those elegant, strong hands—elegant enough that people believed them delicate, elegant enough to match the finery she usually wore to dazzle the rest of the world into thinking that she was something else entirely. But there was strength in them, in her, and for a moment I pitied the people who believed she was dangerous only to the mind. “Do not make a sound, do not touch _anything_ but the object she took from me.”

Elizabeth looked up, hands braced on my thighs. _Bow,_ she’d once ordered Zaneli, and now here she was—on her knees, blue eyes glinting up at me as if she remembered it too. Had that disastrous dinner been part of her game—that façade? Or had it been vengeance for the horrible blood feud between them?

“If we’re correct about your powers,” she began, “if the Bone Carver wasn’t lying to us, then you and the object will have the same…imprint, thanks to the preserving spells I placed on it long ago. You are one and the same. She will not notice your presence so long as you touch it and _only_ it. You will be invisible to her.”

“She’s blind?”

She dipped her head in a nod. “But her other senses are lethal. So be quick, and quiet. Find the object and run out, Meliodas.” Her hands lingered on my legs, wrapping around the back of them; I tried not to shiver at her touch.

“And if she notices me?”

Her eyes went dark, dark as the night she reveled in. “Then we’ll learn _precisely_ how skilled you are.”

Cruel, conniving bastard. I glared at her, and she shrugged. “Would you rather I locked you in the House of Wind and stuffed you with food and made you wear fine clothes and plan my parties?”

 _Low blow._ “Go to hell. Why not get this object yourself if it’s so important?”

“Because the Weaver knows me—and if I am caught, there would be a steep price. High Ladies are not to interfere with her, no matter the direness of the situation. There are many treasures in her hoard, some she has kept for millennia, all of which she guards fiercely. Most will never be retrieved, thanks to the laws that protect her, thanks to her wrath. I suspect she is much like Arthur—something else, something leashed into the form she has taken, but all the deadlier for it.” There was steel in her gaze as she murmured, “But you, Meliodas…she does not know you. You belong to every court, and so she cannot hurt me and mine—not through you, and not through me.”

“So I’m your hunter and your thief?”

Her hands slid down to cup the backs of my knees as Elizabeth purred with a roguish grin, “You are my salvation, Meliodas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can someone say t e n s i o n? too late for that, though--it's time for meliodas to face the weaver of the wood.
> 
> liked it? loathed it? loved it? tell me what you thought in the comments!


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time has come for Meliodas's test against the ancient Weaver of the Woods. Elizabeth, of course, seems to have no desire to let him go in without annoying the hell out of him first.

Elizabeth winnowed us into a wood more ancient than any I’d ever hunted in. Ancient—and _alive_ in some way, more aware than even the stone of the Prison had been. The gnarled beech trees were tightly woven together, splattered and draped so thoroughly in vines and lichens that it was nearly impossible to see through them. Throughout the air wound a hum of energy, droning and humming like a hive of bees, deceptively dull as it watched us blink into existence.

“Where are we?” I breathed, hardly daring to whisper.

Elizabeth kept her hands within casual reach of her weapons, blue eyes flicking over the area thoughtfully, warily, as though waiting for monsters to charge out of the gloom. “In the heart of Britannia,” she murmured, keeping her voice as low as mine, “there is a large, empty territory that divides the North and South.” Those cutting blue eyes landed on me as she added, “At the center of it lies our sacred mountain.”

My heart stuttered in my chest at the memory of the monsters I’d seen and faced beneath that mountain, the tight, stinking prison of the mountain itself. I tore my focus from my memories, placed it on my steps through the tangles of moss and roots and ferns, undergrowth so thick that it could trip me in a heartbeat if I didn’t watch my footing. “This forest,” Elizabeth continued, navigating the maze of growth with annoying ease, “is on the eastern edge of that neutral territory. Here, there is no High Lady. Here, the law is made by whoever is the strongest, the meanest, the cleverest. And the Weaver of the Woods is at the top of their food chain.”

The trees groaned as if in response to her title, though there was no breeze winding through the leaves to shift them. No, the air here was tight and stale, as if we were underground despite the stray sunbeams filtering through the canopy. “Mael didn’t wipe them out?”

“Mael was a monster, but he was no fool.” Elizabeth’s face darkened. “He did not touch these creatures or disturb the wood no matter how much I pushed him to. For years, I tried to manipulate him into making that fatal mistake, but he never bought it.”

So there was a creature that even Mael feared—that _Elizabeth_ would not confront directly. “And now we’re disturbing her—for a mere test.”

She chuckled, sound bouncing off of the gray stones strewn across the forest floor, scattered like marbles in a game played by gods. “Gelda actually tried to convince me last night not to take you. I thought she might even punch me for it.”

I blinked. “Why?” I’d had all of two or three days worth of exchanges with her—hardly enough to inspire any thoughts of defending me or a bond of some kind.

Elizabeth’s grins was dark and savage. “Who knows? With Gelda, she’s probably more interested in fucking you than protecting you.”

My shoulders tightened at that, fingers curling into fists. “You’re a pig.”

She shrugged, holding up the branch of a stunted beech tree for me to slip under. “You could, you know,” she hummed, hopping down beside me. “If you needed to move on in a physical sense, I’m sure Gelda would be more than happy to oblige.” A quicksilver smile. “She wouldn’t be the only one.”

The appraising look in those blue eyes, the amusement dancing in her smile…joke though we both knew it was, it still felt like a test in itself. And it pissed me off enough that I crooned, “Then tell her to come to my room tonight.”

“Perhaps I will, if you survive this test.”

I paused atop a lichen-crusted rock, glancing over my shoulder at her. “You seem quite pleased by the idea I won’t. Am I that irritating?” Part of me delighted in the fact that I was making things _slightly_ more difficult, at least, while the other half cringed guiltily at the thought.

“The opposite, actually.” She prowled to where I stood on the stone, tilting her head. We were nearly at eye level like this, electricity seeming to crackle in the depths of those starlit eyes. The forest went even quieter, the trees almost seeming to lean closer, as if some spirit trapped within them was eavesdropping on our conversation. “I’ll let Gelda know you’re… _open_ to her advances.”

“Good,” I replied sweetly, the taste of the ire on my tongue like nectar after so long spent in empty, apathetic silence. A bit of hollowed-out air almost seemed to push against me between us, like a flicker of night in broad daylight. That power limning my veins and marrow rose and crackled in answer, purring savagely.

I made to jump off the stone, but she gripped my chin, the movement too fast to detect. Her words were a lethal, spiteful caress as she purred, “Did you enjoy the sight of me kneeling before you, Meliodas darling?”

I knew she could hear my heart as its speed rocketed into a thunderous drumming, giving away more than I’d ever want known. I gave her a hateful little smirk anyway, yanking my chin out of her touch and leaping off the rock. I might have aimed for her feet. And she might have shifted out of the way just enough to avoid it. “Isn’t that the only thing you’re good for, anyway?”

The words were tight, near breathless, betraying far too much—and she knew it, judging from that devastating smile, one that evoked silken sheets and jasmine-scented breezes in the velvet of midnight. A dangerous game, we’d begun—one Elizabeth was forcing me to play not because of her own feelings (or, more accurately, lack thereof), but to distract me. To keep me from thinking about what I was about to face, about what a wreck I was inside.

Anger, the strange flirtation, this twisted back-and-forth we stepped into with the ease of dancers who’d traced the steps a thousand times before… She knew these were my crutches, and was using them in my favor.

What I was about to encounter, then, must be truly nightmarish if she wanted me going in there mad—thinking about sex (of all things), about punching her (far more likely), about anything but the Weaver of the Wood. “Nice try,” I said hoarsely. Elizabeth just shrugged and loped off into the trees ahead.

 _Asshole_. Yes, it had been to distract me, but—

I stormed after her as silently as I could, intent on tackling her and slamming my fist into her spine (she was High Fae and Illyrian and could rip me apart without blinking, but I was insane enough to try), but she held up a hand as she halted on the edge of a clearing. I scowled, opening my mouth to ask her why she’d halted—then stopped as I saw what she was looking at.

A small, whitewashed cottage sat in the center of the clearing, complete with thatched roof and half-crumbling chimney—something I’d have seen in my own town in the mortal lands. There was even a well, its bucket perched on the stone lip, and a wood pile beneath one of the round windows of the cottage. No sound or light lay within—not even smoke puffing from the chimney. The few birds in the forest fell quiet—not silent, entirely, but their chatter dulled to a minimum. And— _there_.

Faint, coming from within the cottage, was a pretty, steady humming. It might have been the sort of place I would have stopped if I were thirsty, or hungry, or in need of shelter for the night. Perfectly innocuous, quaint and harmless.

Maybe that was the trap.

The trees around the clearing, close enough that their branches nearly clawed at the thatched roof, might very well have been the bars of a cage. I fought down the burst of fear at the thought, narrowing my eyes at the home of the monster.

Elizabeth inclined her head toward the cottage before sweeping me a bow, dripping with dramatic grace. I shifted my weight, stepping forward—toward what very well may have been my death.

In, out—don’t make a sound. Find whatever object it was and snatch it from beneath a blind person’s nose.

And then run like hell.

Mossy earth paved the way to the front door, already left ajar—cheese in the mousetrap, and I the foolish mouse about to fall for the temptation.

Eyes twinkling, Elizabeth mouthed, _Good luck_.

I gave her a vulgar gesture and slowly, silently made my way toward the front door. The woods seemed to monitor every step along the path, and I wondered what other monsters might be watching in these woods, who gazed out at me from within the gloom. When I glanced over my shoulder, Elizabeth was gone.

She hadn’t said if she’d interfere if I were in mortal peril—maybe because I was already in mortal peril just by being here. Even so, I probably should have asked.

I avoided any leaves and stones, falling into a pattern of movement that some part of my body—some part not born of those seven High Ladies—remembered. Like waking up—that’s what it felt like. Like I was alive again, born anew at last.

I passed the well. Not a speck of dirt, not a pebble out of place. A pretty, perfect trap, that mortal part of me whispered, my mind falling into the ice of the hunt. A trap designed from a time when humans were prey, now laid for a game of immortals, between the undying.

I was not prey any longer, I decided as I eased up to that door. I was not prey, and I was not a lamb or a mouse—and I was more than a wolf, more than any of them could dream.

I was a dragon.

I listened on the threshold, the rock beneath my feet worn as if many, many boots had passed through—and perhaps never passed back over again. The words of her song became clear now, her voice sweet and beautiful, like sunlight on a stream:

_“There were two sisters,_

_They went playing_

_To see their father’s ships come sailing…_

_And when they came unto the sea-brim,_

_The elder did push the younger in.”_

An ancient, horrible, honeyed voice for an ancient, horrible, honeyed song. I’d heard it before—slightly different, sung by humans who had no idea that it was born of faerie throats. I listened for another moment, trying to hear anyone else within the cottage. All I heard, though, was the clatter and thrum of some sort of device, and the Weaver’s song.

_“Sometimes she sank, and sometimes she swam,_

_‘Til her corpse came to the miller’s dam.”_

My breath locked in my chest, but I managed to keep it even, directing it through my mouth in steady, silent breaths. I eased the front door open, barely an inch. Not a squeak was heard, no whine of rusty hingers or damage from humidity. Another piece of the pretty trap, practically inviting thieves in to play.

I peered open when the door was wide enough. A large main room greeted me, with a small, shut (no doubt locked) door in the back. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, crammed with everything under the sun: books, coins, shells, children’s toys, herbs, pottery, shoes, belts, crystals, more books and manuscripts, fine jewels… From the ceiling and wooden rafters that crisscrossed the house hung all manner of chains, dead birds, dresses, ribbons, gnarled bits of wood, strands of perfect pearls…

A junk shop—of some immortal hoarder.

And that hoarder…

In the gloom of the cottage, there sat a large spinning wheel, cracked and dulled with age. Before that ancient spinning wheel, her back to me, sat the Weaver.

Her indigo hair was short and glossy in the dim light, the strands just brushing her shoulders. Strange wings, a smaller, more delicate version of the ones belong to the Illyrians, jutted from her back, the claws at the ends reaching down to her slender waist as she worked the wheel, snow-white hands feeding and pulling the thread around a thorn-sharp spindle. She looked young, her dove-gray gown simple but elegant, sparkling faintly in the light filtering through the windows, singing in a voice of glittering gold:

_“But what did he do with her breastbone?_

_He made him a viol to play on._

_What’d he do with her fingers so small?_

_He made pegs to his viol withal.”_

The fiber she fed into the wheel was white, soft. Like wool, but I knew, in that lingering part of me that was still human, that it wasn’t. I knew that I did not want to learn what creature it had come from, who she was spinning into thread. On the shelf directly beyond her were cones upon cones of thread, every color and texture. And on the shelf adjacent to her were swaths and yards of that woven thread—woven, I realized, on the massive loom nearly hidden in the darkness near the hearth. The Weaver’s loom.

I had come on spinning day—would she have been singing if I had come on weaving day instead? From the strange, fear-drenched scent that came from those bolts of fabric, I already knew the answer.

A dragon. I was a _dragon_.

I stepped into the cottage, careful not to disturb the scattered debris on the earthen floor, mindful not to nudge one thing out of place. She didn’t so much as glance at me as she kept working, the spinning wheel clattering so merrily, so at odds with her horrible song:

_“And what did he do with her nose-ridge?_

_Unto his viol he made a bridge._

_What did he do with her veins so blue?_

_He made strings to his viol thereto.”_

I scanned room, trying not to listen to the lyrics. Nothing—I felt nothing that might pull me toward one object in particular, none of that strange tracking ability Elizabeth claimed I had. Perhaps it would be a blessing if I were indeed _not_ the one to track the Book of Breathings—if today was not the start of what was sure to be a slew of miseries and mysteries, none of which I could unravel.

The Weaver perched there, working, singing, a monster ready to pounce. I scanned the shelves, the ceiling frantically. Borrowed time—I was here on borrowed time, and I was nearly out of it.

Had Elizabeth sent me on a fool’s errand? Maybe there was nothing here at all. Maybe this object of hers had been taken or retrieved long ago, or perhaps she’d never given it to the Weaver at all. It would be just like her to do that—to tease me in the woods, to see what sort of things might make my body react.

And maybe I resented Zaneli enough in that moment to enjoy that deadly bit of flirtation. Maybe I was as much a monster as the female spinning before me.

But if I was a monster, then Elizabeth was as well. It was a truth she’d told me herself—that she believed herself a monster and a coward and everything the other courts spat at her, and I had told her that I was the same. _We_ were the same, even beyond the power that she’d given me.

It’d be fitting if Zaneli hated me, too, once she realized I’d left for good.

I felt it, then, like a string tugging me out of the cesspool of my wandering thoughts—a tap on my shoulder, a laugh in the distance.

I pivoted, keeping one eye on the Weaver and the other on the room as I wove through the maze of tables and junk. Like a beacon, a bit of starlight laced with her half-smile, it called me to it. _Hello_ , it seemed to say. _Have you come to claim me at last, O Lovely Thief?_

Yes—yes, I wanted to say, even as part of me wished it was otherwise. The Weaver sang behind me,

_“What did he do with her eyes so bright?_

_On his viol he set at first light._

_What did he do with her tongue so rough?_

_‘Twas the new till and it spoke enough.”_

I followed that dancing, shining pulse toward the shelf lining the wall beside the hearth. Nothing on the first, or the second—but the third, just above my eyeline… There. I could almost smell her lightning-and-citrus scent on it. The Bone Carver had been corrected—magic was now twined deep in my soul, and I could seek it out like a bloodhound if necessary.

I rose on my toes to examine the shelf. A broken, old sword with a hilt shaped like a dragon’s head, an open leather notebook with designs for some strange fin scribbled in it, a flower that glowed like a drop of sunlight in a chipped and tarnished vase, an old, ragged stuffed animal with orange fur and black button eyes, and—a ring.

A ring of twisted strands of gold and silver, flecked with pearl and ivory, and set with a stone of deepest, solid blue. Sapphire—but different. I’d never seen a sapphire like that, even in my father’s offices. This one… I could have sword that in the pale light, the lines of a six-pointed star radiated across the round, opaque surface.

Elizabeth—this had Elizabeth written all over it.

 She’d sent me here for a _ring?_

The Weaver sang,

_“Then bespake the treble string,_

_‘O yonder is my father the king.’”_

I watched her for another heartbeat, gauging the distance between the shelf and the open door. Grab the ring, and I could be gone in a heartbeat. Quick, quiet, calm.

_“Then bespake the second string,_

_‘O yonder sits my mother the queen.’”_

I dropped a hand toward one of the knives strapped to my thighs. When I got back to Elizabeth, maybe I’d stab her in the gut.

That fast, as if my nightmares had been waiting in the shadows, biding their time until the right—or absolute wrong—moment to pounce, the phantom sensation of blood covered my hands, slicked up my throat and down my chin. I knew how it would feel to drive the blade through her skin and bones and flesh. Knew how the blood would dribble out, how she’d gasp in pain—

I shut out the thought, even as I could feel the blood of those innocent faeries soaking that human part of me, the piece that hadn’t died and belonged to no one but my miserable, rotten self.

_“Then bespake the strings all three,_

_‘Yonder is my sister that drowned me.’”_

My hand was quiet as a final, dying breath as I plucked the ring from the shelf.

The Weaver stopped singing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so the tension increases~  
> Loved it? Despised it? Curious about something? Leave a comment below, please! It's what keeps writers like me going.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Weaver strikes.
> 
> And Meliodas rises to the challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _slides back into ao3 with an intact laptop and a new chapter ___
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> warning: there is a scene where a character attempts to impose himself on Elizabeth. To skip that scene, stop reading at “You kept me waiting,” and resume at, “Then the doors slammed shut.”

I froze, the ring now in the pocket of my jacket as I turned my gaze toward her. She’d finished the last song and there was still more thread to spin—maybe she’d start another. Maybe I’d make it out of here, unnoticed, untouched, alive.

 _Maybe_.

The spinning wheel slowed, every moment that the Weaver did not propel it like the dreaded tolling of a bell from the afterlife, come to rip away some sinner’s soul. I backed a step toward the door. Then another.

Slower and slower, each rotation of the ancient wheel longer than the last. Only ten steps to the door.

Five.

The wheel went around one last time, so slow I could see each individual spoke as it passed in that circle of dark prophecy.

Two.

I turned for the door just as she lashed out with a pretty white hand, gripping the wheel and stopping it wholly, silence falling between us.

The door before me snicked shut. I lunged for the handle, but there was none. Outside—it had to open from the outside, or on her command.

 _Window_. Get to the window—

“Who is in my house?” the Weaver said softly.

Fear—undiluted, unbroken _fear_ —slammed into me, a thousand times worse than the nightmarish swirl of emotion I’d felt while hunting in the woods oh-so long ago, seconds before bringing down a wolf that was not a wolf and being thrown into Britannia as a price paid for a single kill, and I remembered. I remembered what it was to be human and helpless and weak, what it was to want to _fight_ to live, to be willing to do _anything_ to stay breathing just a minute longer—

I reached the window beside the door. Sealed—no latch, no opening, nothing but glass that was stronger than diamond, impenetrable even when I struck against it.

The Weaver of the Wood turned her face toward me. Dragon or wolf or mouse, it made no difference, because before that face I became no more than an animal, sizing up my chance of survival against the apex predator of this kingdom of nothing.

Above her young, supple body, beneath her lovely indigo hair, her skin was gray—wrinkled and sagging and dry. Where eyes should have gleamed lay two rotting black pits, her lips withered to nothing but deep, dark lines around a hole full of jagged stumps of teeth—like she had gnawed on too many bones.

And I knew she would be gnawing on _my_ bones soon if I did not get out.

Her nose—perhaps once pert and pretty, now half-caved in—flared as she sniffed in my direction. “What are you?” she asked in a voice that was so young and lovely, more honey in the trap meant to pull me in. Out—out, I had to get _out_ —

There was another way. One suicidal, reckless way.

I did not want to die.

I did not want to be eaten.

I did not want to go into that sweet darkness.

The Weaver rose from her little stool, and I knew my borrowed time had run out. “What is like all,” she mused, taking one graceful step toward me, “but unlike all?”

I _was_ a dragon.

And I _burned_ when cornered.

I lunged for the sole candle burning on the table in the center of the room, hurled it against the wall of woven thread—against all those miserable, dark bolts of fabric. Woven bodies, skins, lives, souls. Let them be free—and let the Weaver lose something after taking so much.

Fire erupted, and the Weaver’s shriek was so piercing I thought my head might shatter, thought my blood might boil in its veins. She dashed for those high-climbing flames, as if she’d put them out herself with those flawless white hands, her mouth of rotted teeth open and screaming like there was nothing but black hell inside her.

I hurtled for the darkened hearth. For the fireplace and chimney above. A tight squeeze, but wide—wide enough for _me_.

I didn’t hesitate as I grabbed onto the ledge and hauled myself up, hissing in frustration as my arms buckled. Immortal strength—it had only gotten so far, and I’d become so weak, so malnourished that the once-daily activity of climbing was a _struggle_ for me. _Weak_.

I had _let them_ make me weak. _Bent_ to it like some wild horse broken to the bit, a slave bowing to their master over and over until they forgot how to raise their head. I had let them destroy _me_ , and now I was paying the price.

The soot-stained bricks, though—they were loose, uneven. The perfect aids in my climb, when I’d need speed to survive, to make it out of this house of horrors. Faster—I had to go _faster_. My shoulders scraped against the brick the higher I climbed, and it reeked in here, like carrion and burned hair and scorched flesh, and was an oily sheen on the stone, like cooked fat—

The Weaver’s screaming was cut short as I was halfway up her chimney, sunlight and trees so close that I could taste the golden sunshine on my tongue, every breath a near sob. I reached for the next brick, fingernails breaking as I hauled myself up so violently that my arms barked in protest against the squeezed of the stone around me, and—and I was _stuck_.

Stuck, as the Weaver hissed from within her cottage, “What little mouse is climbing about in my chimney?”

I had just enough room to look down as the Weaver’s rotted face appeared below. She put that milk-white hand on the ledge, and I realized how little room there was between us—between me and a long, slow death. One that I wouldn’t come back from.

My head emptied out.

I pushed against the grip of the chimney, but couldn’t budge. I was going to die here—I was going to be dragged down by those beautiful hands and ripped apart and eaten. Maybe while I was still alive, she’d set that hideous mouth on my flesh and gnaw and tear and bite and—and—

Black panic crushed in, and I was again trapped under a mountain that I knew was so terrifyingly close to this new prison, in a muddy trench with the Middengard Wyrm barreling for me. I’d barely escaped, barely—

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, _couldn’t breathe_ —

The Weaver’s nails scratched against the brick as she took a step up. _No, no, no, nononono_ —

“Did you think you could steal and flee, thief?”

I would have preferred the Middengard Wyrm. I would have preferred those massive, sharp teeth to her jagged stumps, ripping and tearing and breaking—

 _Stop_.

The word came out of the darkness of my mind—and the voice was my own. Not Elizabeth’s, not some past monster’s. _Mine_.

 _Stop_ , it said—I said.

 _Breathe_.

 _Think_.

The Weaver came closer, brick crumbling under her hands. She’d climb up like a spider—like I was a fly in her web—

 _Stop_.

And that word quieted everything.

I mouthed it to myself— _stop, stop, stop_.

 _Think_.

I had survived the Wyrm, survived Mael. And I had been granted _gifts_. Considerable gifts that I had not trusted, had taken for granted and never had the sense to try and use. That stopped _now_.

Yes, I had gifts—like strength.

I _was_ strong.

I slammed a hand against the chimney wall, as low as I could get. The Weaver hissed at the debris that rained down, crooning something about futility, about how she’d kill me ever so slowly for that, the long, slow death I’d been granted for defiance. I listened to none of it as I smashed my fist again, rallying that strength.

I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal.

I was a survivor, and I was strong.

I would not be weak, or helpless again. I would not, _could not_ be broken. _Tamed_.

I pounded my fist into the bricks over and over, and the Weaver paused as if in confusion, her climb halted. Paused long enough for the brick I’d loosened to slide free into my waiting palm—and for me to hurl it at her hideous, horrible face as hard as I could.

Bone crunched and she roared, black blood spraying. But I rammed my shoulders into the sides of the chimney, skin tearing beneath my leather armor. I kept going, going, going until I was stone breaking stone, until nothing and no one held me back and I was scaling the chimney. I didn’t dare stop as I reached the lip and hauled myself out, tumbling onto the thatched roof—a roof that wasn’t thatched with hay at all.

But with hair.

And all that fat lining the chimney—all that fat now gleaming on my skin…the hair clung to me in clumps and strands and tufts, pulled free of the roof by its stickiness. Bile rose, but the front door banged open—a shriek following it.

No, I couldn’t go that way. Not to the ground.

Up, up, up.

A tree branch hung low and close by, and I scrambled across that heinous roof, trying not to think about who and what I was stepping on, what clung to my skin, my clothes. A heartbeat later, I’d jumped onto the waiting branch, scrambling into the relative safety of the foliage as the Weaver screamed, ** _“WHERE ARE YOU?”_**

I was running through the tree—running toward another one nearby. I leaped from branch to branch, bare hands tearing on the wood _. Where the hell is Elizabeth?_

Farther and farther I fled, her screams chasing me every step even as they grew ever-fainter the more distance I put between us _. Where are you, where are you, where are you—_

And then, lounging on a branch in a tree before me, one arm draped over the edge, seated in that ancient tree like it was her throne, Elizabeth drawled, “What the hell did you _do?”_

I skidded to a halt, my breathing raw. I thought my lungs might actually be bleeding. “ _You,”_ I hissed--I was going to _kill her_ for this, unleash the hell inside me on her and burn her to black dust and golden ash, I would punch that smug grin  _right off her face._

She raised a finger to her lips and winnowed to me in one smooth motion, grabbing my waist with one hand and cupping the back of my neck with her other as she spirited us away from the dread-woods—

To Liones. To just above the House of Wind.

* * *

 

We free-fell, and I didn’t have the breath, the fear left in me to scream as her wings appeared, spreading wide and dark across the sky, and she curved us into a steady, smooth glide…right through the ever-open windows of what had to be a war room, judging by the maps and pins I could barely make out scattered on the walls. Gelda was there—in the middle of arguing with Arthur about something, energy crackling around the both of them.

Both froze was we landed on the red floor, that tautness dissipating quickly as wide eyes fixed on the both of us. There was a mirror on the wall behind them, and I glimpsed myself long enough to know why they were gawking so obviously. My face was scratched and bloody, and I was covered in dirt and grease— _boiled fat_ —and mortar dust, the hair of the Weaver’s roof stuck me, and I smelled—

“I hate to say it, Meliodas, I really do,” Arthur put forward hesitantly, “but…you sort of smell like barbecue. Burnt barbecue.” Gelda rolled her eyes as I shot him a glare, loosening the hand she’d wrapped around the fighting knife at her thigh before elbowing Arthur, who elbowed her right back.

I was still panting, still trying to gobble down one even, steady breath, trying to think again through the slime coating my skin and the dust in my throat and the ringing of the Weaver’s screams in my ears, the memory of that decrepit face haunting. The hair clinging to me—the hair _of other, once-living people_ —scratched and tickled, and—

“You kill her?” Gelda demanded.

I couldn’t answer—I might throw up if I tried—and hated that I felt grateful as Elizabeth answered, “No,” folding her wings loosely. “But given how much the Weaver was screaming, I’m absolutely dying to know what Meliodas darling did.”

 _Fucking_ —I had the grease and hair of _people_ on me—

I actually did throw up as the realization sank in, and couldn’t help the sharp of vindication within my nausea at the idea of staining Elizabeth’s nice floors. Floors I had half a mind to collapse and go to sleep on right now. Gelda swore as my retching halted, but Arthur waved a hand and it was instantly gone—along with the mess on me. I could still feel the ghost of it there, though, the remnants of people, the mortar of those bricks…

“She detected me somehow,” I managed to rasp out, slumping against the large black table and wiping my mouth against the shoulder of my dark leathers. The marble the table was hewn was deliciously cool against my feverish skin, and I braced my hands against it, holding myself up. “Locked the doors and windows just before I could get out. I had to climb out through the chimney,” I added as Gelda’s eyebrows arched inquisitively, “and when she tried to climb up, I threw a brick at her face.”

Silence—and then Arthur looked to Elizabeth, narrowing his eyes. “And where were _you_?”

“Waiting, far enough away that she couldn’t detect me and trace your presence back to my court.”

I snarled at her, baring my teeth. “I could’ve used some help in there.”

She shrugged, utterly unapologetic. “You survived. And found a way to help yourself.” From the steely glint in those eyes of swirling blue, I knew she was well aware of the panic that had almost gotten me killed, either through mental shields I’d forgotten to raise or whatever anomaly in our bond linked our minds so strangely. She’d been aware of it—and let me endure it alone anyway. Because it _had_ almost gotten me killed, and I’d be no use to her if it happened when it mattered—with the Book of Breathings, or the Cauldron. Exactly like she’d said.

A perfect plan, disguised as a retrieval—and I’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

“ _That’s_ what this was about,” I spat, and my fingers curled into fists, nails digging into my palms. “Not just this _stupid, worthless ring_ —” I reached into my pocket, slamming that cursed object down on the table, half-hoping the sapphire would shatter— “or my _abilities_ , but if I can master my panic.”

Gelda cursed with great enthusiasm and fluency as I stared Elizabeth down. Arthur only shook his head, expression unreadable. “Assholish—brutal, but effective.”

Effective my ass. I had the strong urge to punch them both in the face, one I didn’t act on only because the adrenaline was fading and my entire body ached. Elizabeth merely raised her eyebrows. “Now you know that you can use your abilities to hunt our objects, and thus track the Book at the Summer Court, and master yourself. I’d call this a win.”

“You’re a bitch, Elizabeth,” Gelda informed her, her voice deadly-soft.

Elizabeth merely tucked her wings in with a graceful snap. “You’d do the same.”

Gelda shrugged as if to say fine, she would.

Add her to the punching list, then. In my dreams, because punching them in the waking world…

I looked at my hands, my nails bloody and cracked, the once-soft skin on my palms scraped raw and stinging as new callouses formed. Hands of a man who’d been made to fade into the background of a spring-sweet manor—and had clawed his way into the foreground again. My hands. I glanced at Gelda. “I want to teach you to train me—how to fight. To get strong. If the offer to train still stands.”

Gelda’s eyebrows rose once more. I didn’t bother marveling at how she didn’t so much as glance to Elizabeth for approval—she knew this was her call, and mine, and the High Lady could not command her not to train a new soldier. “You’ll be calling _me_ a bitch pretty damn fast if we train. And I don’t know a thing about training humans—how breakable your bodies are.” She grimaced. “Were. We’ll figure it out as we go.”

“I don’t want my only option to be running.”

“Not that running isn’t a useful option,” Arthur muttered dryly. “It did keep you alive today, you know. But yes, carry on.”

I ignored him, did so without fearing retaliation—something I _never_ could’ve done in the Spring Court. “I want to know how to fight my way out. I don’t want to have to wait on anyone to rescue me ever again—I want to save _myself_ the next time something happens.” I faced Elizabeth, crossing my arms. “Well? Have I proven myself, _Your Majesty?”_

She merely picked up the ring, inclining her head to me in some strange approximation of gratitude, splaying it in her hand. “It was my father’s ring.” As if that was the only explanation and answers owed after shoving me into a cottage with a _magical people-eating soul-weaving monster._ Ridiculous, pretentious prick.

“How’d you lose it?” I demanded.

Her lips quirked up slightly. “I didn’t. My father gave it to me as a keepsake, then took it back when I reached maturity—and gave it to the Weaver for safekeeping.”

“Why?” Why give anything to that creature, even if it was for “safekeeping”, especially when it would be nigh-impossible to get it back? Why was it so damn _important?_

“So I wouldn’t waste it.”

Nonsense and idiocy and—I wanted a bath. I wanted _quiet_ and a bath, and a long, long nap—and a drink. In that order.

The need for those things it me strongly enough that my knees buckled beneath me. I’d barely looked at Elizabeth before she took my hand, flared her wings, and had us soaring back through the windows without so much as a farewell to her general and Second. We free-fell for five thunderous, wild heartbeats before she winnowed to my bedroom in the townhouse.

A hot bath was already running, started by either Vervada and Risling—I resolved to thank them later—or whatever magic this house had within its walls. I staggered to it, exhaustion hitting me like a punch to the gut, when Elizabeth inquired, “And what about training your other… _gifts_?”

The false curiosity in her voice didn’t fool me for a second, didn’t disguise the offer cloaked in a seemingly innocent question. “I think you and I will shred each other to bits.”

“Oh, most definitely.” She leaned against the threshold of the bathing room, blue eyes twinkling through the steam from the tub. “It wouldn’t be fun otherwise. Consider our training now officially part of your work requirements with me.” A tilt of the head, a thoughtful arch of the brow. “Go ahead—try to get past my shields.”

“Fuck off.” Her lips curved up at that, amusement glinting in her eyes, and I scowled. “The bath will go cold, and I’m exhausted.” I was more concerned about the former than the latter.

“I promise it’ll be just as hot in a few moments.” She waved a hand airily. “Or, if you mastered your gifts, you might be able to take care of that yourself.”

My frown deepened as I crossed my arms—but I needed this training, I knew. Needed to master every aspect of myself in this hunt for Book and Cauldron and the king of Erebus, and that the faster I got this over with, the faster I got to take a long, hot bath and drown my exhaustion in the expensive selection of wines and ales Diane hinted to me about at that first dinner. I took a step toward her, then another—made her yield a step, two, into the bedroom. The phantom grease and hair clung to me, reminded me what she’d done—

 I held her stare, those blue eyes glittering.

“You feel it, don’t you,” she purred over the burbling and chittering garden birds, the soft whisper of wind audible even through the windows that let not a scrap of cold inside. “Your power, prowling under your skin, rumbling in your ear, waiting for you to use it.”

“So what if I do?”

Her shoulders rose and fell in a languid shrug. “I’m surprised Ludociel didn’t carve you up on an altar to see what that power looks like inside you. To see what he could _take_.” She spat the word like poison, like the air of her city, her home didn’t deserve to be poisoned by Ludociel’s name.

I blinked, furrowed my brow. Ludociel had been an accomplice in my weakening, and now that I’d stepped back, I knew he was a scheming asshole, but this hatred…it was _personal_. “What, precisely, is your issue with him?”

“I find the High Priests to b a perversion of what they once were—once promised to be, for the good of all Fae.” Blue went from shimmering starlight to chips of glittering ice. “Ludociel is among the worse of them.”

A knot twisted in my stomach. “Why do you say that?”

Her grin was like a wolf’s, all teeth and claws and limned with death. “Get past my shields and I’ll _show_ you.”

Ah. So this turn of conversation was meant to be bait, drawing me out to play.

I let myself fall for it, holding her gaze all the while. I let myself imagine that line between us, a thread of woven light and shadow…and at the other end lay her shield, dark as night and soft as velvet, yet solid and impenetrable. No way in, no cracks to exploit. However I’d slipped through before…I had no idea. “I’ve had enough tests for one day.”

In the blink of an eye, Elizabeth had crossed the two feet between us, standing barely an inch away. I could hear the steady beat of her heart as clear as day, never a skip or a stutter. “The High Priests have burrowed into a few of the courts—Dawn, Day, and Winter, mostly. They’ve entrenched themselves so thoroughly that their spies are everywhere, their followers near fanatic with devotion.” Thunder seemed to dance in her eyes. “And yet, during those fifty years, they ran. They escaped, and remained hidden, and only crept back into our land once they were sure the threat was past. I would not be surprised if Ludociel sought to establish a foothold in the Spring Court.”

“You mean to tell me they’re all cold-blooded monsters?”

The slightest shake of the head. “No. Some are, yes. Some are exactly what the Priests vowed to be—compassionate and selfless and wise. But there are those who are merely self-righteous—and to me, they have always been the most dangerous of the lot.”

“And Ludociel?”

A knowing sparkle in her eyes. She really wouldn’t tell me. She’d dangle it before like a piece of meat, bait before a trap—

I lunged. Blindly, wildly, fast as a striking snake and uncontrolled as wildfire, but I sent my power lashing down that line pulled taut between us, crackling down it like a thread of lightning. Deadly, devastating power that I still couldn’t control, power that had blocked out even Zaneli.

A yelp escaped me as it slammed against her inner shields, the reverberations echoing through me as surely as if I’d slammed my body into something. Power—all that power, and yet her shields did not even crack. Elizabeth chuckled, and I saw _fire_ , red and bright and burning. “Admirable—sloppy, unrefined, but an admirable first effort.”

Panting a bit, I seethed, sure that smoke would be hissing from between my teeth if I were any angrier. She grinned, and crooned, “Just for trying,” her hand finding mine. The bond tightened, that thing under my skin pulsing as magic seemed to crackle through every breath, and—

There was darkness, and swirling silver smoke, and the colossal sense of _her_ on the other side of her mental barricade of impenetrable black adamant, lined in velvet and glittering with stifled starshine. The shield seemed to go on forever, the product of half a millennia of training, of being hunted, attacked, hated, and guarding herself from all sides.

I brushed a hand against that wall, reaching out with my power to trail my fingers along it. Like a great wolf arching into a touch, it seemed to rumble—and then relaxed its guard. Her mind opened for me into an antechamber of some kind, a small space carved out in the depths of that ancient, powerful psyche to allow me to see…

_A bedroom carved from obsidian and diamond, a mammoth bed of silky ebony sheets and rich, dark furs that came from beasts I did not wish to know, large enough to accommodate wings—and on that bed, sprawled in nothing but his skin, lay Ludociel._

I balked, reeling back as it hit me that it was a memory, and Ludociel was in _her_ bed, in _her_ Court of Nightmares beneath that shining mountain, bare and waiting and so clearly expecting _something_ —

“There is more,” Elizabeth’s voice murmured from far away as I fought to pull free of the memory, my gold-limned power slamming into her silver-touched darkness. My mind slammed into the shield—the other side of it, that antechamber turned into a cage. She’d trapped me in here to see whatever came next, and there was nothing I could do but watch.

_“You kept me waiting,” Ludociel sulked._

_The sensation of hard, carved wood dug into my back—Elizabeth’s back—as she leaned against the bedroom door, giving no outward sign of the discomfort. I felt irritation flicker in her, and boredom. “Get out.”_

_Ludociel gave a little pout, propping himself up on his elbows as he shifted his legs wider, revealing_ everything _to her. “I see the way you look at me, High Lady.”_

_“You see what you want to see,” she—we—replied in a voice of ice and night and creatures that hid in the dark. The door opened beside her. “Get out.”_

_A coy tilt of his lips, the male rising to his knees. “I heard you like to play games.” His elegant hand, those musician’s fingers I’d seen bless weary Spring Court denizens, drifted low, trailing past his navel. “I’ll think you’ll find me a most worthy playmate, Lady Elizabeth.”_

_Icy wrath crept through me—her—as she debated the merits of splattering him on the walls, and how much of an inconvenience it’d be later. He’d hounded her relentlessly—stalked the other high-ranking Fae, too. Gelda had to be forcibly restrained last night because of it, and King had left to return to Liones. Diane was about one more comment away from snapping his neck._

_“I thought your allegiance lay with other courts.” Her voice was so cold, so commanding—the voice of the High Lady._

_“My allegiance lies with the future of Britannia, with the true power in this great land.” His fingers slid down to grasp himself—and halted. His sharp inhale cleaved the room as she sent a tendril of power blasting for him, pinning that arm to the bed—away from himself. “Do you know what a union between us could do for Britannia? For the world?” he pressed, eyes devouring her even then._

_“You mean yourself.”_

_“Our offspring could rule Britannia.”_

_Cruel amusement danced through her. “So you want my crown—and for me to play bitch?”_

_He tried to move, to writhe his body as if to tempt her, but her power held him in place. “I don’t see anyone else worthy of the position.”_

_He’d be a problem—now, and later. She knew it well, could see the grudge that rejection would create, the trouble a seemingly sweet, lovely male could cause for her true court. Kill him now, end the threat before it began, face the wrath of the other High Priests…or see what happened. “Get out of my bed. Get out of my room. And get out of my court.”_

_She released her power’s grip to allow him to do so, to leave and hopefully never darken her door again. Ludociel’s face seemed to darken, and he slithered to his feet, not bothering with his clothes draped over her favorite chair. Each step toward her only increased her disgust, even with the beauty of his face. He stopped barely a foot away. “You have no idea what I can make you feel, High Lady.”_

_He reached a hand for her, right between her legs._

_Her power lashed around his fingers before he could take anything, touch anything that wasn’t his, wasn’t offered. She crunched her power down, delighting in Ludociel’s scream as she twisted it. He tried backing away, but her power froze him in place—so much power, so easily controlled, roiling around her as she contemplated ending his existence like a python surveying a mouse._

_Elizabeth leaned close to breathe in her ear, “Don’t ever touch me. Don’t ever touch another female in my court.” Her power snapped bones and tendons, and he screamed again. “Your hand will heal,” she added, stepping back. “The next time you touch me or anyone in my court, my lands, you will find that the rest of you will not fare so well._

_Tears of agony ran down his face, an effect wasted by the hatred twisting that lovely visage into something monstrous. “You will regret this,” he hissed._

_She laughed softly, a lover’s laugh, and a flicker of power had him thrown on his ass in the hallway. His clothes followed a heartbeat later._

_Then the door slammed shut._

Like a pair of scissors cleaving through a taut ribbon, the memory was severed, the shield behind me opening up to let me out. I stumbled back, blinking as the familiar walls of my bedroom faded back into reality, Elizabeth’s blue eyes peering down at me with strangely glazed eyes. “Rule one,” she informed me, and I realized the film over her eyes came from the rage of that memory, “is don’t go into someone’s mind unless you, personally, hold the way open. A _daemati_ might leave their mind spread wide open, like an inviting playground—and then shut you inside, turning you into their willing slave and leaving you none the wiser.”

A chill went down my spine at the thought, as it had at that first visit to the mountain-palace—at the thought of someone pulling _me_ out and stuffing something else back in. But what she’d shown me…

“Rule two,” she went on, her face carved from marble and unyielding as adamant, “when—”

“When was that?” I blurted out. I knew her well enough now not to doubt its truth—knew that she would never lie, not about something like that. “When did that happen between you?”

The ice never left her eyes, instead seeming to reach ever-deeper. “A century ago, at the Court of Nightmares. Before—before him. I allowed Ludociel to visit after he’d begged for years, always insisting he wanted to build ties between the Night Court, which was notoriously secretive, and the priests. I’d heard rumors about his true nature, but he was young and untried, and I hoped that perhaps a new, open-minded High Priest might be the change his order needed. It turned out that he was already well trained by some of his less-than-benevolent brothers.”

I swallowed hard, my heart thundering. That male helped me plan my wedding—pretended to be my friend, ate at Zaneli’s table, helped me make decision after decision that made me feel smaller, weaker, less than I was—but I hadn’t seen a single sign of... _that_. “He—he didn’t act that way at—”

Jenna. Jenna had hated him, had made vague, vicious allusions to not liking him, to being approached by him—

I had done nothing. Nausea swirled in my stomach at the realization. Had he pursued my once-friend like that? Had she…had she been forced to say yes because of her position? And if— _if_ I ever went back to the Spring Court one day, how would I ever convince Zaneli to dismiss him? What if, now that I was gone, he was—

“Rule two,” Elizabeth finally finished, her voice surprisingly soft, “be prepared to see things you might not like.”

Fifty years after that encounter, Mael had come—and done exactly to Elizabeth what she’d wanted to kill Ludociel for, what she’d tried to protect her family from. She’d _let_ it happen to her, too, figured it was better her than them, had done it too keep them safe. To keep Gelda and King from the nightmares that would haunt her forever, from enduring any more pain than what they’d suffered as children in a lonely war-camp. To keep Arthur and Diane from ever knowing complete and utter helplessness, to keep a monster and a dreamer from losing what kept them from becoming like the other soulless creatures wandering this land.

I lifted my head to ask her more—but she’d already vanished.

Alone, I peeled off my clothes, struggling with the buckles and straps she’d put on me—when had it been? An hour or two ago? _You are my salvation, Meliodas,_ she’d said, and grinned like a fiend, ever-so darkly amused. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then.

And I was now a certified Book-tracker, apparently. Plus a survivor of the Weaver, and Emissary of the Night Court to the human lands. It was a title I’d never wanted—never even considered might exist in my future, but it was better, far better than a party-planning husband playing stud for the High Lady. What Ludociel had wanted to make me into—to serve whatever agenda he had.

The bath was indeed hot, as Elizabeth had promised, and in it I found myself mulling over what she’d shown me, seeing that hand reach again and again between the High Lady’s legs, the disgusting _arrogance_ and _ownership_ in that gesture—

I shut out the memory, the bathwater suddenly cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please read and review! Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long to work out.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth's efforts to communicate with the Summer Court have gone unanswered, so there's only one option left to the Night Court: go to the human lands. For the Court of Dreams, that means trespassing on lands they've been forbidden from for five hundred years...and for Meliodas, that means seeing his brothers again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short update for you guys, plus some of Diane's past! Happy Holidays!

Word had yet to reach us from the Summer Court pertaining Elizabeth’s request, so Elizabeth made good on her decision to bring us to the mortal realm—to my brothers’ house. My mother’s manor.

I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but I knew that somehow this would dissolve into chaos, as surely as I knew that Estarossa loved gardens and Zeldris would likely greet me with a punch to the face.

“What does one wear, exactly, in the human lands?” Diane pondered from where she sprawled across the foot of my bed, one of the plump down-stuffed pillows in her lap. For someone who claimed to have been out drinking and dancing until the Mother knew when, she appeared unfairly perky, bright eyes peering at me as I rummaged through my wardrobe. Gelda and King, on the other hand, had been left grumbling and wincing over breakfast, looking like they’d been run over by wagons—repeatedly. Some small part of me wondered at the sight of them, though, wondered what it might be like to go out with them, to see the city was Elizabeth said it was meant to be viewed—at night.

I withdrew from the armoire, frowning at the selections there. All of them would draw too much attention from humans, attention we’d have to avoid in order to not alert Erebus. “Men usually wear waistcoats, then a shirt, then an undershirt—layers, really. Everyone wears layers regardless of the fashions; everything is covered up.” I pulled out a simple dress shirt, tilting my head at it and glancing at Diane, who shook her head. I put it back with a sigh, continuing, “The décolletage might be a little more daring depending on the event or the customs of the regions but everything else is hidden between heavy layers.”

“Even the women?”

I snorted, remembering how Mother would grumble about the sheer weight and complexity of the fine gowns she wore to social events. “Especially the women.”

There was a low hum from the High Lady’s Third as she rolled onto her stomach, violet eyes thoughtful. “Sounds like the women are used to not having to run—or fight. I don’t remember it being that way five hundred years ago, or at least not that bad.” She wrinkled her nose, looking a bit put-out.

I didn’t respond immediately, trailing my fingers over the clothes littered throughout my armoire. They halted almost instinctively on an ensemble of wine-red with accents of gold, dark enough not to trigger my memories of bloodstains and bold enough to suit me—rich, bright, regal. The kind of thing Diane or Arthur would wear, that a powerful, fearless warrior of the most powerful High Lady’s Inner Circle would wear. The kind of thing _I_ once liked to wear, before… _everything_. “Even with the wall,” I answered finally, pulling the top and pants free, “the threat of faeries remained high enough that they warned us of the dangers of the wall, of your—our kind, nearly constantly. Surely practical clothes would have been necessary to run, to fight those that crept through. I wonder what changed.” I turned to her, holding up the clothes for her approval even as my brow furrowed, mind lost in thoughts of my human past, of all the things these ancient Fae knew and how they connected to what little I had seen.

Diane’s eyes lit up in approval and she nodded, clapping her hands together excitedly—but she stayed silent, waiting for me to make my choice. No commentary, no beatific intervention like the kind Ludociel liked to provide whenever I selected something for myself. No crooning, poison sweet words like the ones he’d whispered to her—

I shoved away the thought, and the memories of what he’d tried to do to Elizabeth, and went on, “Nowadays, most women wed, bear children, and then plan their children’s marriages.” I recalled my mother telling me of such things, when she thought I was too young to understand, when Father’s death was new and she had to take over the business—panicking, venting to me about how she had not been trained for such things, how all she had been supposed to do was bear heirs for Father’s bloodline and be the dutiful, loving wife he’d demanded of her. A small smile crossed my face at the memory of what she’d done after that one night of self-indulgence—built Father’s business into an empire that had been made to stand the tests of time, one that might have lasted forever…had not a bad investment made by Father before he died ruined everything, and debtors came to collect what she could not pay.

The smile fell from my face, and I sighed. “Some of the poor might work in the fields, and a rare few are mercenaries or hired soldiers.” That, I knew, was a hard path for the women who chose to follow it, a life of little respect and no sure money despite often being just as (or more) skilled than the men surrounding them. “The wealthier they are, the more restricted their freedoms and roles become. You’d think that money would buy you the ability to do whatever you pleased.”

“Some of the High Fae,” Diane muttered, pulling at an embroidered thread in my blanket like it held all the secrets to every problem any of us had ever faced, “are much the same.”

I sensed that there was more to the story, more that she might tell, and I bit my tongue to keep myself from disrupting whatever had settled over her. My steps were near-silent as I slipped behind the dressing screen to untie the robe I’d donned moments before she’d entered to keep me company while I prepared for the journey today—for what _I_ might face. My brothers, I realized with no small amount of amusement, would be shocked (and horrified, especially Estarossa) that there was only a screen between me and a female who was not related to, but I’d long since fallen in with the Fae’s stranger, less formal version of propriety. After all, I had been tended to by female Fae, served by them; after so long spent being dressed by Derieri (and then by Vervada and Risling, I supposed), I no longer particularly _cared_.

“In the Court of Nightmares,” Diane went on, drawing me out of my thoughts as her voice went deadly-soft and deathly-cold, “females are…prized. Each family is led by a matriarch and her heir, and everyone else in the family is below them and must bow to their whim—and everyone was below my mother and her heir. The other females…our virginity is guarded, then sold off to the highest bidder—whichever male will be of the most advantage to our families.

I continued to dress, if only to give myself something to do while the horror of what I began to suspect slithered through my bones and blood, cold and creeping like a serpent. _Sold like animals—bred like cattle—_

“I was born stronger than anyone in my family—stronger than Mother. Stronger than Matrona, the heir she’d selected long before I was born.” Her voice was distant, locked in that poisonous court below a deceptively beautiful mountain. “I couldn’t hide it, because they could smell it—the same way you can smell a High Lady’s heir before she comes to power, the same way we all knew Elizabeth was going to be her mother’s heir from the second she was born. The power…it leaves a mark, an _echo_. A reminder that the one who bears the mark is capable of crushing their world to dust.” I saw her silhouette shift, one hand splayed before her. “When I was twelve, before I bled, I prayed it meant that my mother would not risk marrying me off, that I would escape what my elder cousins had endured: loveless, sometimes _brutal_ marriages.”

I tugged my shirt over my head, buttoning the velvet cuffs at my wrist before adjusting the sheer, deep red sleeves into place. The simple task kept the creeping horror and shocking, vicious anger at what went on under that mountain at bay, though I doubted it would last.

“But then I began bleeding a few days after seventeen.” Diane’s voice was still frighteningly flat, terrifyingly cold. “The moment my first blood came, the moment nature deemed me mature, my power awoke in full force and even that gods-damned mountain trembled around us when I roared. Instead of being horrified, though, every single ruling family in the Hewn City saw me as a prize mare, the best breeding bitch of the lot. Saw that power and wanted it bred into their bloodline over and over again.”

Gods… “What about your parents?” I managed to say through the emotion clogging my throat, slipping my feet into the rose-gold shoes, already regretting the ache my feet would suffer later. It’d be the end of winter in the mortal lands—most shoes aside from thick boots would be useless. Actually, my current ensemble would be useless, but only for the moments I’d be outside, moments I would spend bundled up in thick dark cloaks and a coat beneath.

Diane snorted. “Oh, my darling mother was beside herself with glee. She could have her pick of an alliance with any other ruling matriarch. My pleas for choice in the matter went unheard, and males have no say in a matriarch’s decision, so of course my father bowed to her. Didn’t even consider that there might be another world—another way.”

 She got out, I reminded myself. Diane got out and now lived with people who cared for her, who loved and trusted her and would never chain her down. People who took the removal of _choice_ as the greatest sin of all, and would kill anyone who took that right from another.

 “The rest of the story,” she added as I emerged, “is long, and awful, and dreadfully disheartening and not the sort of thing you need to have on your mind while going to meet your family, so I’ll tell you some other time. I came in here to say I’m not going with you to the mortal realm.”

I furrowed my brow, then winced. If it reminded her of what she’d suffered in the Hewn City—

“Not because of what you’ve told me,” she continued, “but…when the queens come, I will be there. I wish to see if I recognize any of my long-dead friends in their faces. Others, though…” A strange look passed over her face, grief and rage and other things I couldn’t name. “I don’t think I would be able to behave with any others.”

I blinked, my throat tightening. “Did Elizabeth tell you not to go?”

“Elizabeth?” She actually laughed at that, threw back her head and cackled. “Lizzie tried to convince me to come, actually—said I was being ridiculous. Gelda understood, though; the two of us went out and wore her down last night.”

My eyebrows arched slightly at the silent admission in those words. _So that was why they went out last night—to get Elizabeth drunk._

Diane shrugged at the unasked question in my eyes, though something in her seemed to soften, warm and bright once more. “Gelda helped Elizabeth get me out of there before either had the real rank, the leeway to do so. For Elizabeth, getting caught would’ve been a mild punishment, maybe the cold shoulder from the socialites among the old court. Gelda, though…she risked everything to make sure I stayed out of that court. And she laughs about it, acts like it’s all a game, but she believes that she’s a low-born bastard, not worthy of her rank or her life here despite having proven her worth a dozen times over.” She shook her head slowly. “She has no idea that she’s worth more than anyone else I met in that court— _and_ outside of it. Both her and King.”

Yes—King, who forever kept a step away from Diane, those shining amber eyes fixed on her, whose permanent aura of cold and sharpness of his steel seemed to fade in her presence. I opened my mouth to ask about her history with him, but the clock chimed before I could—ten bright, shining tolls, ringing out with a strange finality.

It was time.

My hair, infuriatingly unruly to both Vervada and Risling though it was, had been arranged before breakfast into a loose, tumbling braid, a circlet of ruby-flecked gold set atop my head. Twisting gold bracelets slid up my wrists, simple gold rings set in my pointed ears. Diane made no comment—and I knew (realized, really, because nothing of the sort had ever happened _before_ ) that had I decided to wear nothing but my undergarments, she would’ve told me to own every damn inch of it. “I’d like my brothers to meet you,” I said suddenly, turning to face her.

She cocked her head.

“Maybe not today,” I clarified, “but if you ever feel like it…” I swallowed, trying to find the words to explain what I meant, what her friendship meant, her kindness and unwavering respect. “I want them to hear your story. And to know that there is a special strength in enduring such dark trials and hardships and still remaining warm, and kind. Still willing to trust—to reach out.”

Because _I_ had needed to hear it, after trudging alone through an endless, suffocating darkness for months and months, after beginning to lose whatever kindness, goodness was still inside me. Because I had needed to _know_ that it was possible, that it was _okay_ to try to be kind, that I wouldn’t poison anyone else with the broken _thing_ inside me. That perhaps one day I wouldn’t wonder if kindness came with strings attached ever again.

Diane’s mouth tightened and she blinked once, twice, awash with some emotion I couldn’t quite place.

I went for the door, but paused with my hand on the knob, glancing back at her—bronze skin, violet eyes, dark hair, laughing and vibrant despite all that was done to her, defiant in the face of those who thought she could be broken. As I had not been. As I _should_ be, from now on. “I’m sorry that I was not as welcoming to you as you were to me when I arrived at the Night Court. I was… I’m trying to learn how to adjust.”

A pathetic, foolish attempt at articulating just how ruined I’d become.

But Diane hopped off the bed, opened the door for me, and said, “There are good days and hard days for me—even now.” Fire glowed in her eyes, the kind that rested in the heart of the earth, calm but ferocious in its seething power. “Don’t let the hard days win.”

* * *

 

Today, it seemed, would be yet another hard day.

With Elizabeth, Gelda, and King ready to go—Arthur and Diane remaining in Liones to run the city and plan our inevitable trip to Erebus (one I dreaded more by the day—one I refused to think about until I was strong enough to face it)—I was left with only one choice: who to fly with.

Elizabeth would winnow us off the coast of the Night Court, right to the invisible line where the wall had kept separate humans and fae for five hundred years. According to her, there was a tear in its magic about half a mile off shore—which we’d fly through. Or _they_ would, at least; I, with my distinct lack of Illyrian wings, would have to be carried by one of the three warriors before me. It shouldn’t have been a hard choice—pick the one I knew best, and head out. But the one I knew best…

I took one look at Elizabeth, wrapped in those fighting leathers, blue eyes burning as her lips curved into a dark smile, and felt those hands on my thighs again. Felt how it’d been to look inside her mind, her _memories,_ felt her cold rage, her burning fury, felt her…felt her defend herself, her people, her _friends_ using the power and masks that the world called her a monster for. She’d seen and endured such—such _unspeakable things_ and yet her hands had been gentle, almost _kind,_ the touch like—

I didn’t let myself finish the thought as I said, “I’ll fly with King.”

Elizabeth and Gelda looked at me as though I’d said I wanted to parade through Liones in nothing but my skin, but King shrugged and simply said, “Of course.” And thankfully, that was that.

Elizabeth winnowed Gelda in first, returning for us moments later. The spymaster and I waited in a silence more awkward than companionable, both of us decidedly not looking at each other as he scooped me up, steel twining around my arms before he noticed and sent it reforming into twin daggers. Elizabeth, I realized with something like amazement, was _frowning_ a bit (sulking, maybe? I pushed away the thought as soon as it came—that was impossible, what was there to even sulk _over?)_ as she approached, brow furrowed.

“Don’t let the wind ruin my hair.” The half-assed attempt at humor came out sharper, angrier than I would’ve liked it, and I winced—but it seemed to do the job, because she snorted in amusement and grabbed King’s arm—

And we all vanished into a dark wind, all stars and velvet shadows, counting down seconds and minutes and hours and days as we fell through nothing, nothing, nothing—

Then sunlight pierced the darkness and the world filtered back in as we dropped down, down, down—and then tilted, shooting straight forward, King following the two winged figures that flew just ahead of us. The spymaster, for how fragile he looked, was surprisingly _strong,_ scarred hands carrying me with ease as the wind howled around us.

Below, ahead, behind, the vast, blue sea stretched, churning and roaring far beneath us. Above, palaces of clouds drifted in spires of ever-shifting white. And to my left…a dark smudge on the horizon. Land.

 _Spring Court_ land. I wondered if Zaneli was on the western sea border—she’d once hinted at trouble there (had left me in a _cage_ while she dealt with it). Could she sense us, sense _me,_ even from this distance—even now, when I felt more shadow than rose?

I didn’t let myself think about it, not for long—not as I _felt_ the wall. As a human, hunting alone by the edges of it for food and furs and _survival,_ it had been nothing but an invisible shield, turning us away whenever a foolish mortal tried to cross into Fae lands. As a _faerie…_ it was still invisible, but I could _hear it_ crackling with power, the bitter tang of it coating my tongue, making my stomach churn with revulsion.

“It’s abhorrent, isn’t it,” King murmured, his voice nearly swallowed by the rumble of power and the scream of the wind.

Abhorrent—yes, that was an accurate description. “I can see why you—” I winced. _You_ are _one of them._ “Why _we_ were deterred for all these centuries,” I finished. Every heartbeat had us racing closer to that gargantuan, nauseating sense of power—the kind that could rip world in two. That _had_ ripped worlds in two.

“You’ll get used to it—the wording.” Clinging to him so tightly, I couldn’t see his face. I watched the light shift inside the sapphire Siphons studding his armor instead, as if it were the great eye of some half-slumbering beast guarding a frozen wasteland.

The wording—the _I, you, we, us, mine, ours,_ that I’d been desperately trying to adjust to as High Fae. That I’d been _failing,_ so far, to adjust to. “I don’t really know where I fit in anymore,” I admitted, perhaps only because the wind was shrieking around us and Elizabeth had already winnowed to where Gelda’s dark form flew—beyond the wall.

A soft chuckle, more sad than anything else. “I’ve been alive five and a half centuries and I’m not sure of that, either.”

I tried to pull back to read the beautiful, icy face, but he tightened his grip—a silent warning to brace myself. How King knew where the cleft in the wall was, I had no idea. It all looked the same to me: invisible, open sky.

I felt it, though, as we swept through. Felt it lunge for me, as if enraged we’d slipped past, felt the power flare and try to close that gap, but _fail—_

Then we were out.

The wind was biting, the temperature so cold it snatched the breath from my lungs, turned it into puffs of mist. That bitter wind seemed somehow less _alive_ than the spring air we’d left behind, as though the hum of magic I’d grown so used to had left the world. King banked, veering toward the coastline, where Elizabeth and Gelda were now sweeping over the land. I shivered in my fur-lined cloak, clinging to that steady warmth.

We cleared a rocky beach of bone-colored sand at the base of white cliffs, and flat, snowy land dotted with winter-ravaged forests spread beyond them.

The human lands.

My home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read and review to keep me writing!


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meliodas sees--and speaks to--his two younger brothers for the first time in a year. It goes...about as well as can be expected, under the circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Eve! Expect more tomorrow ;)
> 
> Also, Zeldris and Estarossa are finally in the story, yay!

It had been a year since I stalked through that labyrinth of snow and ice and killed a faerie with hate in my heart. A year since Zaneli had burst into the tiny hovel that my father and brothers resided in, since I had been taken over the wall and into a land of perpetual Spring. Since I had fallen in love—since I’d found what I thought I needed. What I now could hardly _stand._

My family’s emerald-roofed estate was as lovely and welcoming at the end of winter as it had been in the height of summer. It was a different kind of beauty, though—the pale marble seemed warm against the stark snow piled high across the land, and bits of evergreen and holly decorated the red-curtained windows, the glimmering archways, the iron lamp-posts. The only bit of decoration, _celebration_ humans bothered with after the War—after every holiday became a reminder of their immortal overseers.

Three months with Mael had destroyed me. I couldn’t begin to imagine what millennia with High Fae like him might do—the scars it’d leave on a culture, a people. _My_ people—or so they had once been, before wolves and beasts and blades of ash, before three trials and three months and a riddle solved. Before I was Made.

Hood up, fingers tucked into the fur-lined pockets of my cloak, I stood before the double doors of the house, listening to the clear ringing of the bell I’d pulled a heartbeat before. Behind me, hidden by Elizabeth’s glamours, my three companions waited, unseen.

I’d told them it would be best if I spoke to my family first. Alone.

I shivered, aching suddenly for the moderate winter of Liones, wondering how the climate could be so mild so far north. Then again, _everything_ in Britannia was strange, beyond mortal logic and reason. Perhaps before the wall had existed, back when magic had run freely between realms, the seasons hadn’t been so violently different. I wondered what else had changed since those ancient times—perhaps, I realized, my thoughts beginning to border on nervous hysteria, I could ask one of my companions, with their five centuries of knowledge.

The door opened, and a merry-faced, round housekeeper—Mrs. Rosa, I recalled—squinted at me. “Can I help…” Her words trailed off as she noticed my face, eyes widening slightly. With the hood on, my ears and crown were hidden, but that glow, that unnatural, predatory stillness…she didn’t open the door any wider, and panic began to beat at my chest. _You have to let us in—let_ me _in—it’s for them, for their sakes, I swear it—_

“I’m here to see my family.” My voice was remarkably, eerily steady. It didn’t seem to boost her confidence any (and it did no favors to mine, either).

“Your—your mother is away on business, but your brothers…” Here. They were here, and I could speak to them if she would let me by, but she _wasn’t moving._

She knew. She could tell there was something different, something _off—_

Her eyes darted around me. No carriage, no horse. No footprints through the snow. No way I could possibly be here…except for _magic._

Her face turned white, white and cold, white and _terrified,_ and I cursed myself for not thinking of it, half-turning toward where the Illyrians waited—

“Mrs. Rosa?”

Something in my chest—something _human,_ something that hadn’t quite died under the mountain—broke at Estarossa’s voice from the hall behind the housekeeper. At the sweetness and youth and kindness, untouched by Britannia, unaware of what his big brother had become, the murdering monster who stood before him. The murdering monsters that our attempt to stop Erebus would bring into his happy, peaceful life.

I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t bring the horror of the Fae world upon them.

Then Estarossa’s face appeared over Mrs. Rosa’s shoulder, and the world seemed to freeze.

Beautiful—he’d always been the most beautiful of us, soft and lovely as a summer dawn. Estarossa looked exactly as I’d remembered him, the way I’d _made_ myself remember him in those dungeons, sick and dying and seconds from giving in and reminding myself that if I failed, if Mael crossed the wall, _he’d be next._ My sweet, gentle little brother, who loved animals and flowers and was kind to everyone no matter what. The heart of the three of us, forever giving and _good_ in a way I could never be.

He’d be next if the King of Erebus brought down the wall. If I didn’t get the Book of Breathings. If I _failed_.

Estarossa’s silver hair, so much like mine had been once upon a time, was cropped short and messy, as if he’d just returned to the estate after a long ride. Pale, creamy skin flushed with color, the green eyes the three of us shared going wide as he in the sight of me.

Those eyes, bright as holly, filled with tears and silently overran, spilling down those lovely cheeks.

Mrs. Rosa didn’t yield an inch. She’d shut this door in my face the moment I so much as breathed wrong. I couldn’t blame her for it, either.

Estarossa lifted a slender hand to his mouth as his shoulders shook with a quiet sob. More tears—tears for _me,_ who had done so much, _destroyed_ so much that I was no longer worthy of being missed. Not by him—not by _them._

“Estarossa,” I said hoarsely.

Footsteps on the sweeping stairs behind them, then—

“Mrs. Rosa, draw up some tea and bring it to the dining room.”

The housekeeper looked to the stairs, then to Estarossa, then to me.

A phantom in the snow.

The woman merely gave me a look that promised death if I harmed my brothers as she turned into the house, leaving me before Estarossa, still quietly crying. I didn’t have the words to tell her how little that threat was worth, not with the two strongest Illyrian warriors and the most powerful High Lady in history waiting behind me, ready to _defend_ at the slightest provocation. Not with a monster chained to a Fae body and a dreamer of sunlight and earthbound warmth waiting in Liones to ensure that _all_ of us made it back. Not when to provoke them would be to play with death itself.

But I took a step over the threshold and looked up the staircase.

To where Zeldris stood, hand braced on the rail, staring as if I were a ghost.

* * *

 

The house was beautiful, gleaming and warm and lovely, but there was something… _untouched_ about it, empty and cold. Something _new,_ compared to the age and worn love of each of Elizabeth’s homes in and around the city of Liones.

And seated before the carved marble sitting room hearth, my hood on, hands stretched out toward the roaring fire, I felt…felt like they had let in a wolf.

A wraith—a monster. A dragon.

I had become too big for these rooms, for the fragile existence of a mortal, too stained and wild and… _powerful_. Too _dangerous_ for the likes of them, brimming with the vitality and raw energy of a world beyond their comprehension. And I was about to bring that permanently into their lives as well.

Where Elizabeth, Gelda, and King were, I didn’t know. Perhaps they stood as shadows in the corner, watching. Perhaps they’d remained outside in the snow. I wouldn’t put it past Gelda and King to now be flying the grounds, inspecting the layout, making wider circles until they reached the village, my ramshackle old cottage, or maybe even the forests I’d once stalked as a child what felt like so very long ago. There was no response from Elizabeth when I tried to reach out to touch her mind, though I caught myself recoiling as my brothers’ psyches touched my range of control, Estarossa’s bare and horrifically open for anyone to toy with, and Zeldris’s cloaked in iron and fire and steel.

Zeldris…looked the same— _almost._ There was something _older_ about him now—not in his face, which was as grave and stunning as I recalled, but in his _eyes._ In the way he carried himself, and the shadows that seemed to lick at those emerald irises, and the proud set of his shoulders.

Seated across from me on a small sofa, my brothers stared—and waited.

I said, “Where is Mother?” It felt like the only safe thing _to_ say.”

“In Edinburgh,” Zeldris answered, naming one of the largest cities on the continent. “Trading with some merchants from the other half of the world—and attending a summit about the threat above the wall.” He narrowed his eyes at me, sharp and wary, and I wondered what he could see with those eyes, with that mind that even Zaneli’s glamour could not fool. “A threat I wonder if you’ve come back to warn us about.”

No words of relief, of love—not from him. Never from him.

Estarossa lifted his teacup, back ramrod straight as he sent Zeldris a placating glance. “Whatever the reason, Meliodas, we are happy to see you. Alive. We thought you were—”

I pulled back my hood before he could go on.

Estarossa’s cup rattled in its saucer as he noticed my ears, my long, slender hands, the glow of magic that had followed me even across the wall and back again. The face that was undeniably Fae.

“I _was_ dead,” I rasped. “I was dead, and then I was reborn—remade.”

Estarossa set his shivering teacup onto the low-lying table between us. Amber liquid splashed over the side, pooling in the saucer from the force of his trembling.

And as he moved, Zeldris angled himself—ever so slightly between me and Estarossa. Between him and the _threat_ that had prowled into their home wearing the face of family. Because I _was_ a threat to them—to everyone in this house.

It was Zeldris’s gaze I held as I said, “I need you to listen.” As he had once before, when I had been returned from over-the-wall when Mael took Zaneli, when he had confronted me about Britannia and the High Lady I thought I loved.

They were both wide-eyed, Estarossa shaking and Zeldris burning inside with iron and shards of broken glass. But they listened.

I told them my story. Everything, in as my detail as I could endure without breaking. I told them of Under-the-Mountain. Of my trials, and Mael. I told them about death. About rebirth. Explaining the last few months, however—explaining what Zaneli had become, what _I_ had become, was harder. That, I kept brief.

But I explained what needed to happen here—the threat Erebus posed. I explained what this house needed to be, what we needed to be, and what I needed from them.

And when I finished, they remained wide-eyed. Silent.

It was Estarossa who spoke first, voice steady even as his hands trembled, “You—you want other High Fae to come… _here._ And…and the _Kings of the Realm.”_

I nodded slowly, hoping, praying—

“Find somewhere else,” Zeldris bit out, voice icy, merciless.

I turned to him, already pleading, bracing for a fight.

 _“Find somewhere else.”_ Frostbitten steel coated every word as he stared me down, straight-backed and unyielding. “I don’t want them in my house. Or near Estarossa.”

“Zeldris, _please_.” I didn’t make the mistake of reaching for him, for either of them, but my voice—steady throughout the pain of my story—cracked. “There is nowhere else, nowhere I—we—can go without being hunted, crucified—”

“And what of us?” Zeldris tilted his head, almost gleeful in his coldness. “When the people around here learn we’re Fae sympathizers? Are we any better than the Children of the Blessed, then?” I recoiled as he mentioned the cult of Fae-worshippers that roamed the lands, desperate to pass into Fae lands and serve the immortals who resided there. “Any standing, any influence we have— _gone._ And Estarossa’s wedding—”

 _“Wedding?”_ I blurted out. No, it couldn’t be—

I hadn’t noticed the pearl-and-diamond ring on his finger, the dark metal band glinting in the firelight. For a horrible moment, I remembered the gold that had adorned my hand only a month ago, gold and emeralds and _chains._ Estarossa’s face was pale as he looked at it, and for a moment I was wracked with guilt and rage—I was their older brother, their protector, I was supposed to _be there._

“In five months,” Zeldris clarified. “He’s marrying a lord’s daughter, and her father has dedicated his life to hunting down _your kind_ when they cross the wall.”

_Your kind._

“So there will be no meeting here,” Zeldris finished, shoulders stiff. “There will be no Fae in this house.”

“Do you include me in that declaration?”

Zeldris’s silence was answer enough.

But Estarossa said, “Zeldris.”

My youngest brother turned to look at him, arching dark brows.

“If—if we don’t help Meliodas, there won’t _be_ a wedding. Even Lord Chandler’s battlements and all his men—they wouldn’t be able to stop them.” Zeldris didn’t so much as flinch. Estarossa pushed, “We keep it secret, send the servants away. With the spring approaching, they’ll be glad to head home anyways. And if Meliodas needs to be in and out for meetings, he’ll send word ahead and we’ll clear them out. Make up excuses to send them on holidays. Mother won’t be back until the summer, anyway. No one will know.” He put a hand on Zeldris’s knee, the dark fabric of my brother’s coat nearly swallowing up the ivory hand. “Meliodas gave and gave—for years. Let us now help him. Help…others.”

My throat was tight, I was mortified to find, and my eyes were burning. Selfless—my brother was too selfless.

Zeldris studied the dark ring on Estarossa’s finger, the way he still seemed to cradle it. A lord—that’s what Estarossa would become. What he was risking for this.

I met Zeldris’s gaze. “There is no other way.”

His chin lifted slightly, every inch a king, giving way gracefully and seeming no weaker for it. “We’ll send the servants away tomorrow.”

“ _Today_ ,” I pushed, and I let the crackling power that the seven High Ladies had bestowed upon me touch my voice, was horrified to find myself half-relishing the way they recoiled from the power I let snap and snarl around me. “We don’t have time to lose. Order them to leave _now_.”

“I’ll do it,” Estarossa cut in before Zeldris could snap at me, taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders. He didn’t wait for either of us before he strode out, graceful as a doe, and left me alone with Zeldris—the dragon staring down the mountain cat.

“’Is she good—the lord’s daughter he is to marry?”

Zeldris shrugged, though his eyes darkened. “He thinks she is. He loves her like she is.”

“And what do you think?”

Zeldris’s eyes—my eyes, our mother’s eyes, green and glimmering—met mine. “Her father built a wall of stone around their estate so high even the trees can’t reach over it. I think it looks like a prison.”

A prison, for my brother who loved the sky and the earth and the world in all its glory, who needed to be out in the sun and amidst the light of the world. The idea turned my blood cold, cracked the part of me that Zaneli had broken with that cage of roses and white marble and gold. “Have you said anything her?”

A quick shake of the head. “No. The daughter, Peronia, she’s…kind. Strange, but kind, and as smitten with Estarossa as he is with her. It’s the father I don’t like. He sees the money Estarossa has to offer their estate—and his crusade against the Fae.” He shrugged again, though that concern still flickered in his eyes, sharp and wary. “He’s old, though. He’ll die soon enough.”

“Hopefully.”

A noncommittal gesture, green eyes shuttering before he tilted his head at me. “Your High Lady… You went through all _that—”_ he waved a hand at me, my ears, my body— “and it still did not end well?”

Ice and lead crept through my veins again, weighed me down at the memory of it—of how in love and foolish I had been when I first came back here nearly a year ago, smitten with Zaneli and oh, so human. How different I was now. “That lord built a wall to keep the Fae out. My—the High Lady wanted to keep me caged in.”

“Why? She let you come back here all those months ago.”

I snorted despite myself, shaking my head. “She allowed me to come back to protect me from—from Mael. And what happened Under-the-Mountain…I think what happened to her, to us, it _broke_ her.” Perhaps even more than it had broken me—not so obviously, perhaps, to one who was not the victim of that brokenness, but tearing anyone who touched the thorns to shreds. “The drive to protect at all costs, even my own well-being…I think she wanted to stifle it, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t let go of it.” There was still so much I had to do, I realized. To settle things. Settle _myself,_ and become… _strong._

“And now you are at a new court.”

It wasn’t a question, but I said, “Would you like to meet them?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please read and review! The more you review, the faster the next chapter comes out--it's like Popeye and spinach!


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner is great. By which Meliodas means it's a totally unmitigated disaster and Zeldris and Gelda are probably going to kill each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, another chapter for Christmas day! 
> 
> Winter Solstice: important Fae holiday, celebrated kind of like Christmas is irl

It took only a few hours for Estarossa to work his charm on the staff, convincing them to swiftly pack their bags and leave, each with a purse of money from my family’s now near-bottomless coffers to hasten the process. Mrs. Rosa, though the last to depart, promised my brother to keep what she’d seen— _who_ she’d seen—to herself, something I was perhaps a little _too_ grateful for.

I didn’t know where Elizabeth, Gelda, and King had been waiting, but as soon as Mrs. Rosa had hauled herself into the carriage crammed with the last of the staff, heading down to the village in order to find transportation to wherever they all had family, there was a knock at the door. Daylight was already beginning to fade, the world outside painted in shades of blue and white and gray as the golden sunset stained the snow. Night was approaching, and like the falling sun was their herald, they were there, bringing with them the darkness and power that I had begun to trust and that so many others feared.

Zeldris and Estarossa were in the large dining room, the most open space in the house. Looking at the three Illyrians, I knew I’d been right to select it as the meeting spot. They were enormous, too big for the fragility of mortal wealth, for this finery. Wild, and rough and ancient, as though they’d been born from nature itself, the deepest fires and coldest skies.

Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose at the emptiness of the manor, the utter lack of servants and how expeditiously they’d vacated the premises. “You’d think they’d been told plague had befallen the house.”

I pulled the door open wide enough to let them in, grimacing as the cold air rushed in soon after and shutting it as soon as they crossed the threshold. “My brother Estarossa can convince anyone to do anything with a few smiles.”

Gelda let out a low whistle as she turned in place, taking in the grand entry hall, the ornate furniture, the paintings hung in shimmering frames. All of it paid for by Zaneli—initially, at least, in return for my going over the wall with her. She’d taken care of my family when I could not, and yet her own… I didn’t want to think about her family, murdered by a rival court for a reason nobody (least of all her) had bothered to explain to me. Not now, when I was living amongst that court, when I _was not going back—_

She’d been good—there was a part of Zaneli that had been good, was still good beneath the poison and rage and wrath—she’d given me everything I needed to become myself, to feel safe, to be _happy_ for the first time in years. A painting studio, a life of comfort, a full belly and the knowledge my family was safe, that I was safe and would remain so—nothing more, nothing less. And I had loved her so deeply for it. Still did, in some shattered vestige of the boy I’d once been.

And yet, when she’d gotten what she wanted…she’d _stopped._ Oh, she’d tried, everyone had told me she’d _tried,_ but not—not _really._ Not as hard as I had, killing myself to make her happy, letting myself drown in the suffocating silence while she let herself remain happily blind to what I needed after Mael.

“Your mother must be a fine merchant,” Gelda mused, glancing my way. I hoped she didn’t notice the way my shoulders had stiffened as I drifted into thought again, the tightness I knew was in my eyes. “I’ve seen palaces with less wealth.”

I found Elizabeth studying me, a silent question written across her face. My brothers—my brothers knew, but my mother did not. Would not, if they kept their word and we prevented this war successfully. “My mother is away on business—and attending a meeting in Edinburgh about the threat of Britannia.”

“Britannia?” Gelda cocked her head to the side, pale brows rising. “Not Erebus?”

“It’s possible my brothers were mistaken—your lands are foreign to them. They merely said ‘above the wall.’ I assumed they thought it was Britannia, or one of the Fae realms on the continent.”

King drifted forward—none of that strange levitating now, but his stride was as silent as a cat’s, undetectable even to my enhanced senses. “If humans are aware of the threat, rallying against it, then that might give us an advantage when contacting the queens.” Or a disadvantage, I wanted to say—if they truly believed Britannia was the threat, they would not relish contact from the court widely viewed as the most savage and cruel.

Elizabeth was still watching me, as if she could see the weight that had pressed into me since we’d arrived here. The last time I’d been here, I’d been a male—a _man_ in love, such frantic, desperate love that I went back into Britannia. Went _Under-the-Mountain_ as a mere human, as fragile as my brothers now seemed to me. And now I was back, and broken, and bringing the two people I cared for most into a war of immortals.

“Come,” Elizabeth murmured, and though her voice was soft, it rang through the house—the order of a queen, a High Lady. She offered me a subtle, understanding nod, so slight that I would’ve missed it had I still been human, before motioning to me to lead the way. “Let’s make this introduction.”

* * *

 

My brothers were standing by the window, the light of the chandeliers coaxing out a dozen hidden shades in the dark and light of their hair, Zeldris’s glistening with the iridescence of oil while Estarossa seemed to glow with the silver of a crown. So beautiful, and young, and alive—but when would that change? How would it be to speak to them when I remained this way while their skin had grown paper-thin and wrinkled, their backs curved with the weight of years, their white hands speckled?

I would be barely into my immortal existence when theirs was wiped out like a candle before a cold breath.

But I could give them a few good years—safe years—until then.

I crossed the room, the three Illyrians a step behind, the wooden floors as shining and polished as a mirror beneath our feet. I had removed my cloak now that the servants were gone, and it was to me—not to the three warriors behind me—that my brothers first looked. At the Fae clothes, the crown, the jewelry, the glow of immortality that marked me as something _different._ A stranger—this part of me was a stranger to them.

Then they took in the winged warriors—or two of them. Elizabeth’s wings had vanished, her leathers replaced with a devastating gown of midnight blue dusted with star-bright silver, the ink swirling up her arms and neck covered by sheer sleeves. My brothers both stiffened at the sight of Gelda and King, at those mighty wings tucked in tight to powerful bodies, at the weapons, and then at the devastatingly beautiful faces of all three Fae before them.

Estarossa, to his credit, did not faint.

Zeldris, to his, did not hiss at them. He just took a not-so-subtle step in front of Estarossa, and ducked his fisted hand behind the folds of his simple, elegant dark coat. The movement did not go unnoticed by my companions—by _me._

I halted a good four feet away, giving my brothers breathing room in a space that had suddenly been deprived of all air. I turned to the Fae, gesturing toward the two of them. “My brothers, Zeldris and Estarossa Asmodei.”

I had not truly thought of my family name, had not used it for years and years. Even when I had sacrificed and hunted for them, I had not wanted my father’s name—not when it was his decision that had driven us into a hovel, when my mother, bearing that name, had sat before that little fire and let us starve. Let me walk into the woods alone, let me go into the dark and the cold without knowing if I would ever come back. I’d stopped using it the day I’d killed my first rabbit and felt its blood stain my hands, the same way the blood of those faeries had marred them years later like an invisible tattoo.

My brothers did not bow. Their hearts pounded wildly, even Zeldris’s, and the tang of their terror coated my tongue—

“Gelda,” I introduced, inclining my head to the commander, who dipped her head in turn, scarlet yes gleaming. King’s steel was nowhere to be found as I shifted to the right and said, “King.” My eyes found glimmering, midnight blue, and I raised my chin, meeting her gaze head-on. “And Elizabeth, High Lady of the Night Court.”

Elizabeth had dimmed it, somehow—the night rippling off of her, oozing from her skin, the otherworldly grace and thrum of power. But looking into those star-flecked blue eyes, no one would ever mistake her for anything but extraordinary.

She dipped into a curtsy, every movement oozing deadly, feral grace despite her attempt to rein it in. “Thank you for your hospitality—and generosity,” she greeted with a warm smile, but there was something strained in it, sharp and pained.

Estarossa tried to return the smile but failed. Zeldris just looked at the three of them, sizing them up, before glancing at me. “The cook left dinner on the table. We should eat before it goes cold.” He didn’t wait for my agreement before striding off—right to the head of the polished cherry table.

Estarossa rasped, “Nice to meet you,” before practically fleeing after him, booted footsteps beating off a steady patter against the parquet floor.

Gelda was grimacing as we trailed them, Elizabeth’s eyebrows were raised, and King looked more inclined to throw himself out the nearest window to avoid the ensuing conversation. Zeldris was waiting at the head of the table, a king ready to hold court. Estarossa trembled in the upholstered, carved wood chair to his left.

I decided to save them all the awkwardness of having an unfamiliar Fae sat next to my brother and took the one to Zeldris’s right. Gelda claimed the spot beside Estarossa, who clenched his fork like he might wield it against her, and Elizabeth slid into the seat beside me, King on her other side. A faint, amused smile bloomed on King’s lips as he noticed Estarossa’s white-knuckled grip on the fork, but he kept silent, focusing instead—as Gelda was subtly trying to do—on adjusting his wings around a human chair.

Cauldron damn me, I should’ve remembered—but I doubted either would appreciate it if I now brought in two stools.

I huffed out a sigh, pushing back the worry as much as possible, and pulled the lids off the various dishes and casseroles. Poached salmon with dill and lemon from the greenhouse, whipped potatoes, roast chicken with beets and carrots from the root cellar, and some concoction of egg, game meat, and leeks. Seasonal food—whatever they had left at the end of the winter.

I scooped food onto my plate, the sounds of my sisters doing the same filling the silence. I took a bite—and fought my cringe.

Once, this food would have been rich and flavorful.

Now it was ash in my mouth.

Elizabeth was digging into her chicken without hesitation. Gelda and King both ate as if they hadn’t had a meal in months. Perhaps being soldiers, fighting in wars, had given them the ability to see food as strength—and put taste aside.

I found Zeldris watching me, green eyes cold. “Is there something wrong with our food?”

I made myself take another bite, each movement of my jaw an effort. “No.” I swallowed, and gulped down a healthy drink of water—perhaps a terrible move for the act I was trying to put up, but it had been a reflex.

“So you can’t eat normal food anymore—or are you too _good_ for it?” A question…and a _challenge_.

Elizabeth’s fork clanked on her plate, the power radiating off of her increasing ever so slightly in warning. Estarossa made a small, distressed noise.

And though Zeldris had let me use this house, though he’d tried to cross the wall for me and we’d worked out a tentative truce, the _tone,_ the disgust and disapproval…

I thought of Diane, and Arthur, and let my lips curl into a dark, savage smile, fangs flashing razor-sharp as I tilted my head. “I can eat, drink, fuck, and fight just as well as I did before. Better, even.”

Gelda choked on her water. King shifted on his seat, angling to spring between us if need be. And Zeldris—Zeldris just let out a low laugh, dark eyes glimmering condescendingly.

No idea. My brother had _no idea_ what I’d faced, what I had _become,_ the power crackling through my veins like electricity. I could taste fire in my mouth, hear it roaring in my veins, and—

A blind, solid _tug_ on the bond, cooling darkness sweeping into me, my temper, my senses, calming that fire. I scrambled to throw my mental shields up, but they were intact—not a hair out of place.

Elizabeth didn’t so much as blink at me before she drawled, “If you ever come to Britannia, you will discover why your food tastes so different.”

Zeldris didn’t even deign to look at her, cutting up the salmon neatly. “I have little interest in ever setting foot in your land, so I’ll have to take your word for it. _High Lady.”_

There was no mistaking his words for anything but an insult.

“Zeldris, please,” Estarossa hissed, and I wondered absently if Zeldris might end up being the target of that fork instead of Gelda.

Gelda, who was sizing up Zeldris with a gleam in her eyes that I could only interpret as a warrior finding herself faced with a new, interesting opponent—a predator finding a bit of prey she’d rather play with than eat.

Then, Mother above, Zeldris shifted his attention to Gelda, noticing that gleam—what it meant. He snarled low in his throat. “What are you looking at?”

Gelda raised her eyebrows—no amusement, not anymore. Just cold, savage _disgust._ “Someone who let his brother risk his life every day in the woods while he did nothing. Someone who let a fourteen-year-old _child_ go out into that forest alone in the dead of winter, so close to the wall, and continued to sit on his ass and let that child keep his family alive for years.” My face began heating, and I opened my mouth—to say what, I didn’t know. I didn’t deserve this defense, this kindness, but Gelda’s words weren’t coming from pity. They were born from… _respect._ “Your brother died— _died_ to save my people. He is willing to do so again to protect you from war. So don’t expect me to sit here with my mouth shut while you sneer at him for a choice he did not get to make—and insult _my_ people in the process.”

Zeldris didn’t bat an eyelash as he studied the stunning features, the lithe, muscled form—and turned to me. Dismissing her entirely.

Gelda’s face went almost feral. A wolf who had been circling a doe…only to find a mountain cat wearing its hide instead.

Estarossa’s voice shook as he noted the same thing and quickly said to her, “It…it is very hard, you understand to…accept it.” I realized the dark metal of his ring…it was iron. Even though I had told them about iron being useless, there it was. The gift from his Fae-hating soon-to-be wife’s family. Estarossa cast pleading eyes to Elizabeth, then King, such mortal fear coating his features, his scent. “We are raised this way. We hear stories of your kind crossing the wall to hurt us. Our own neighbor, Alioni Beddor, was taken, his family murdered…”

A naked body spiked to a wall in a court of stone and terror. Broken. Dead. Nailed there for _months_ , all because I’d lied about my name. Because Elizabeth had reported that name back to Mael.

Elizabeth was staring at her plate. Unmoving. Unblinking.

She had given Mael Alioni’s name—given it, knowing full well I’d lied to her about it.

Estarossa said, “It’s all very disorienting.”

“I can imagine,” King murmured. Gelda flashed him a glare, but his attention was on my brother, a polite, bland smile masking whatever his true feelings might be. His shoulders loosened and I caught myself wondering if that was how Elizabeth’s spymaster got his information—as much through stone-cold manners as by stealth and shadows.

Estarossa sat a little higher as he continued, “And as for Meliodas’s hunting during those years, it was not Zeldris’s neglect alone that is to blame. We were scared, and had received no training, and everything had been taken, and we failed him. Both of us.”

Zeldris said nothing, his back rigid.

Elizabeth gave me a warning look. I gripped Zeldris’s arm, drawing his attention to me. “Can we just…start over?”

I could almost taste his pride roiling in his veins, barking not to back down.

Gelda, damn her, gave him a taunting grin.

But Zeldris merely hissed, “Fine,” and went back to eating.

Gelda watched every bite he took, every bob of his throat as he swallowed. I forced myself to clean my plate, aware of Zeldris’s attention on _my_ eating.

Estarossa said to King, perhaps the only two civilized gentlemen here, “Can you truly fly?”

He set down his fork, blinking. Had I not known what a good actor he was, I might have even called him self-conscious. “Yes,” he answered. “Gelda and I hail from a race of faeries called Illyrians. We’re born hearing the song of the wind.”

“That’s…incredible.” Estarossa tilted his head, blinking curiously. “Is it not frightening, though? To fly so high?”

“It is sometimes.” King’s words drew Gelda’s attention away from my youngest brother enough to nod her agreement. “If you are caught in a storm, if the current drops away. But we are trained so thoroughly that the fear is gone before we’re out of swaddling.” And yet, King had not been trained until long after that. _You get used to the wording,_ he’d told me earlier. How often did he have to remind himself to use such words? Did “we” and “our” and “us” taste as foreign on his tongue as they did on mine?

“You look like High Fae,” Zeldris cut in, his voice like a honed blade. “But you are not?”

“Only the High Fae who look like _them,”_ Gelda drawled, waving a hand at me and Elizabeth, “are High Fae. Everyone else, any other differences, mark you as what they like to call ‘lesser’ faeries.”

“It’s a term,” Elizabeth said, speaking for the first time since the brief introductions, “that is now used for ease, but masks a long, bloody history of injustices. Many lesser faeries resent the term—and wish for us to all be called one thing.”

“Rightly so,” Gelda declared, raising her water glass in some strange salute.

Zeldris surveyed me, gold and red silk, flashing fire beneath the pretty face. “But you were not High Fae—not to begin with. So what do they call you?” I couldn’t tell if it was a jab or not.

Elizabeth’s lips curved into a small, devious smirk. “Meliodas is whatever he wants to be.”

Zeldris’s eyes swept over us all before landing on me again, on the golden crown that rested on my head. “Write your letter to the kings tonight. Tomorrow, Estarossa and I will go to the village to dispatch it. If the kings do come here,” she added, casting a frozen glare at Gelda, “I’d suggest bracing yourselves for prejudices far deeper than ours. And contemplating how you plan to get us _all_ out of this mess should things go sour.”

“We’ll take that into account.”

Zeldris went on, utterly unimpressed by any of us, “I assume you’ll want to stay the night.”

Elizabeth glanced at me in silent question—my call, then. We could easily leave, the Illyrians finding the way home in the dark, but… Too soon, perhaps, the world would go to hell. We couldn’t risk wasting time. “If it’s not too much trouble, then yes. We’ll leave after breakfast tomorrow.”

Zeldris didn’t smile, but Estarossa beamed. “Good. I think there are a few bedrooms ready—”

“We’ll need two,” Elizabeth interrupted quietly. “Next to each other, with two beds each.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, and she drummed her fingers on the table before explaining, “Magic is different across the wall. Our shields, our senses might not work as their supposed to, and I’m not inclined to take chances. Especially in a house with a man betrothed to a woman who gave him an iron engagement ring.”

Estarossa reddened a bit, casting his gaze down. “The—the bedrooms that have two beds aren’t next to each other.”

“We’ll move things around. It’s fine. This one,” I added, scowling at Elizabeth, whose devious smirk only grew, “is only cranky because she’s old and it’s past her bedtime.”

Elizabeth chuckled, Gelda’s wrath slipping enough that she grinned, and Estarossa, noticing King’s ease as proof that things weren’t indeed about to go badly, offered one of his own as well. Zeldris merely rose to his feet, a slim pillar of steel, and said to no one in particular, “If we’re done eating, then this meal is over.”

And that was that.

* * *

 

Elizabeth wrote the letter as I dictated it, Gelda and King chiming in with corrections and suggestions, and it took us until midnight to come up with a draft we all thought sounded impressive, welcoming, and threatening enough to spur the kings into action. My brothers cleaned the dishes while we worked, and had excused themselves to bed hours before, mentioning where to find our rooms.

Gelda and King were to share one, Elizabeth and I the other.

I frowned at the large guest bedroom as Elizabeth shut the door behind us. The bed was easily large enough for two, but I wasn’t—there was no way I was sharing it, especially not with _Elizabeth,_ of all people, her recent behavior as the picture of a proper young lady aside. Especially not after the Weaver, after—

_You are my salvation, Meliodas._

I whirled to her, my face flushing unbidden at the memory. “I’m not—”

Wood thumped on the carpet, and a small bed appeared by the door with a flick of Elizabeth’s hand. She plopped down onto it, tugging off her heels. “Zeldris,” she declared, tossing them to the edge of the door, voluminous dark skirts spilling around gold-dusted legs as she stretched her arms over her head, “is an absolute _delight,_ by the way. I know you promised us something of the like, but _my gods,_ he’s…certainly something.” Amusement—that was amusement in her eyes, and a bit of irritation, but there was something _more_ to it, simmering under the surface.

“He’s…his own creature,” I said, as much of an explanation I could offer. It was perhaps the kindest thing I could say about him.

She snorted. “That’s certainly one way of putting it. It’s been a few centuries since someone got under Gelda’s skin that easily, though.” Her eyes glittered in the half-light, sharp and wicked. “Too bad they’re both inclined to kill each other.”

Part of me shuddered at the havoc the two would wreak if they ever decided to stop fighting.

“And _Estarossa,”_ she went on, reaching deceptively delicate arms back to undo the clasps on the back of her gown, “absolute sweetheart and gentle little thing that he is, should not be marrying that lord’s daughter for about a _dozen_ reasons, the least of which being the fact that you won’t be invited to the wedding. Though maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Do you really have nothing better to do than to gossip about my family?”

She waved a hand in mock-dismissal, smirking at me. “At least you won’t have to send a gift, either. I doubt his father-in-law would deign to accept it. Though a bottle of poisoned wine from an anonymous source…” She shook her head after a moment with a sigh as I stared at her in horror. “No, you’re right, too cliché.”

“You have a lot of nerve mocking my brothers when your own friends have equally as much melodrama.” Her brows quirked up in silent question—as if she hadn’t noticed it. I snorted; I’d been there for a ridiculously short time and had noticed. Surely she hadn’t been watching and _not knowing_ for five hundred years. “Oh, so you haven’t noticed the way King looks at Diane? Or how she sometimes watches _him_ , defends him? And how both of them do _such_ a good job letting Gelda be a buffer between them all the time?”

Elizabeth leveled a _look_ at me—not quite a glare, but something stern and High-Lady-ish that I had no intention of taking seriously. “I’d suggest keeping those observations to yourself.”

“You think I’m some busybody gossip? My life is miserable enough as it is—why would I want to spread that to those around me as well?”

A flash of _something_ over her face—hurt, guilt, maybe something else, but it was gone too fast for me to tell. “Is it miserable? Your life, I mean.” A careful question, almost innocent were it not for what she knew, what she’d seen, what I’d inadvertently revealed to her and the Bone Carver.

“I don’t know. Everything is happening so quickly that I don’t know what to feel.” It was more honest than I’d been in a while.

She made a soft, noncommittal noise. “Perhaps once we return home, I should give you the day off.”

“How considerate of you, _my lady.”_

She snorted, shaking the remaining clasps on her dress loose, letting it slip off her shoulder— _in front of me_. I squeaked, whipping around to avoid see her unclothed, unable to stop the rush of blood to my cheeks. As she chuckled softly behind me, I realized that I was standing here, still in full Night Court regalia—with nothing to wear to sleep.

A snap of Elizabeth’s fingers nearly made me chance a look over my shoulder, before my nightclothes—and some flimsy underthings, I realized, my cheeks flaming—appeared on the bed. There was laughter, dark and mischievous, in her voice as she sang, “I couldn’t decide which scrap of lace I wanted you to wear, so I brought you a few to choose from~”

“Pig,” I hissed, snatching the clothes and marching into the adjoining bathing room, praying that she hadn’t seen how red I’d undoubtedly gotten. A fool’s prayer, really, considering her abilities, but one I clung to all the same.

The room was toasty-warm when I emerged, Elizabeth in the bed she’d summoned from who-knew-where, all light in the room gone save for the murmuring embers in the hearth, her unbound silver hair spilling like liquid over the dark blankets. Even the sheets of the larger bed were warm as I slid between them, drowsiness worming pleasantly into my veins.

“Thank you for warming the bed,” I murmured into the dimness, nestling into the soft pillows—not as soft, loathe though I was to admit it, as the bed in my room at the townhouse, but lovely all the same.

Her back was to me, but I heard her clear as day as she said, “Mael never once thanked me for that.”

Warmth and sleepiness leeched away, making room for cold rage. “He didn’t suffer enough.” Not even close, for what he’d done. To me, to her, to Alioni, to all of Britannia and so many others.

Elizabeth didn’t answer, a soft sigh echoing around the room. Then, “I didn’t think I could get through that dinner.”

“What do you mean?” She’d been calm, contained, even well-mannered—nothing like Gelda, who had lunged for the jugular as soon as Zeldris gave her the opportunity, who seemed so viciously angry. I knew why—she had been hungry like I was, alone and starving and lost like I had once been. She had been alone, though, and I had not, and with her ties to her soul-family as strong as they were…it was unsurprising that she had been furious upon finding my own blood had not helped me.

She huffed softly, rolling onto her back. “Your brothers mean well—or one of them does. But seeing them sitting at that table, judging you… I hadn’t realized it would hit me as strongly. How young you were. How they didn’t help you.”

“I managed just fine—and besides, they were children.”

“So were you.” Something in her eyes sparked, crackled furiously, before dimming as she turned back on her side. “We owe them our gratitude for letting us use this house, but it will be a long while yet before I can look at your brothers without wanting to roar at them.”

“A part of me feels the same way.” The truth, spurred by her own brutal honesty, slipped past my lips before I could stop it. “But if I hadn’t gone into those woods, if they hadn’t let me go out there alone… You would still be enslaved.” _You would still be_ under _him to protect Liones—to protect whatever goodness you could, and letting the world call you a monster._ “And perhaps Mael would now be readying his forces to wipe out these lands.”

Silence, stillness, not so much a twitch to let me know she’d heard. Then she said, “I _am_ paying you a wage, you know. For all of… _this_.” One delicate, tattooed hand waved, as if to encompass my role Emissary and Book-Finder and…confidante, maybe.

A wage. While I’d sold some of my catches, I’d never been a position to earn a steady wage—and then I’d never needed to. Never even thought about it until I was wholly, entirely trapped. “You don’t need to.” Even if I had no money of my own to speak of. Even if her generosity was already far too much.

“Every member of my court receives one. There’s already a bank account in Liones for you, where your wages will be deposited, plus lines of credit at most stores.” A shrug, the sheets rustling as she shifted. “So if you don’t have enough on you when you’re shopping, you can have the bill sent to the House of Wind or the townhouse.”

Shopping—I was now safe enough to consider shopping. The idea seemed foreign to me, almost frivolous after so long spent buying the bare necessities and nothing more. I already had room and board and anything I could ever dream of. The idea of needing anything else, buying anything else seemed impossible to that winter-cold mortal piece of my soul. “You didn’t have to do that.” _You didn’t have to do any of this._ “How—how much am I being paid each month?”

“The same amount the others receive.” No doubt a generous—likely _too_ generous—salary. But suddenly, before I could protest, she asked, “When is your birthday?”

“Do I even need to count them anymore?” Silence as she waited, immortal patience and unnatural stillness. I sighed. “It’s the Winter Solstice.”

“What?” Elizabeth sounded almost _indignant._ “That was months ago. You should’ve told me so I could get you a present.”

“Like I’d have trusted anything you got me.”

She peeked over her shoulder, blue eyes glimmering with…confusion? “I don’t remember seeing you celebrate it.”

Seeing—oh. Through the strange bond between us, through my unshielded mess of a mind unable to recover from stone cages and rose-wrapped walls. It had seemed pointless, too, to interrupt their most important holiday with something as small as that. “I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want a party when there was already all that celebrating going on. Birthdays seem meaningless now, anyway.” Why celebrate one where there would be hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions more?

She was quiet for a long, long minute. “You were truly born on the Winter Solstice?”

Despite the flicker of irritation within me, I could understand her quiet, burning awe—and _amusement,_ even, that the savior of the Fae was a human boy born on the most auspicious night of the year for Britannia. “Is that so hard to believe? My father claimed I was so withdrawn and strange because I was born on the longest night of the year. He forced my mother to have my birthday on another day one year, but forgot to do it the next time—there were probably more important, advantageous uses of his time.”

Elizabeth snorted. “Now I know where Zeldris gets it. Honestly, it’s a shame we can’t stay longer—if only to see who’ll be left standing: him or Gelda.”

“My money’s on Zeldris.”

A soft chuckle that snaked along my bones, sent shivers down my spine—a reminder that he’d once bet on me. Had been the only one Under-the-Mountain who had put money on me defeating the Middengard Wyrm when Mael threw me into an arena with the monster and ordered me to _hunt, little, poisonous human, hunt._ Elizabeth said, “So’s mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed Meliodas's birthday because of the significance the Winter Solstice has in the Night Court--you know, the longest night of the year and all that. 
> 
> As always, please read and review! Your reviews make me the happiest clam on earth and even if I don't reply to them all, I read every single one and die over it. Thank you all so much for your support!


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meliodas starts his training, Elizabeth flirts--and then everything goes wrong.
> 
> Horribly, horribly wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters are gonna be short, but packed with action and tension! Enjoy!

Standing beneath the latticework of snow-heavy trees in an ice-bound forest, I took in the slumbering woods—not entirely unlike the place of the Weaver of the Wood, should winter ever touch it—and wondered if the birds had gone quiet because of my presence. Or because of that of the High Lady standing beside me, her Illyrian leathers gleaming in the sunlight as she wrinkled her nose at the forest before us.

“Freezing my ass off first thing in the morning isn’t _exactly_ how I intended to spend our day of,” Elizabeth grumbled, frowning at the wood. “I should take you to the Illyrian Steppes when we return—the forest there is far more interesting. And _warmer_.”

“I have absolutely no idea where those are.” Snow crunched under the boots Elizabeth had summoned when I declared I wanted to train with her. Not physical training, no—I’d shut down her eyebrow-waggling and innuendo before she could say anything—but the powers I had. Whatever they all were, fire and wind and ice and whatever else I’d been given. “You showed me a _blank_ map before, remember?”

“Precautions.”

“Am I ever going to see a proper one, or will I be left to guess about where everything is?”

“You’re in a lovely mood today,” Elizabeth remarked, and lifted a hand in the air between us. A folded map appeared, which she took her sweet time opening, clearly savoring my impatience. “Lest you think I don’t trust you, Meliodas darling…” She pointed to just south of the Northern Isles. “These are the Steppes. Four days that way on foot,” she dragged a finger upward and into the mountains along the isles, “will take you into Illyrian territory.”

I took in the map, noted the peninsula jutting out about halfway up the western coast of the Night Court and the name marked there. _Liones._ She’d once shown me a blank map of her court—when I had belonged to Zaneli, more pet than person, and been little more than a spy and prisoner. Because she’d known I’d tell Zaneli about the cities, their locations.

That Ludociel might learn about it too, and come to poison all the light in her court with his honeyed cruelty.

I pushed back against that weight, that guilt in my chest, and forced myself to meet her eyes. I wasn’t ready to apologize for it—not out loud—but I could train as she asked. _Fight_ as she asked.

_Become vital._

“Here,” Elizabeth decided, pocketing the map and gesturing to the forest around us with one tattoo-covered hand. “We’ll train here. We’re far enough now.”

Far enough from the house, from anyone else, to avoid detection. Or casualties.

Elizabeth held out a hand, and a thick, stumpy candle appeared in her palm. She set it on the snowy ground and stepped back, lips curving into a grin. “Light it, douse it in water, and dry the wick.”

I knew she meant without my hands.

“I can’t do a single one of those things,” I protested. “What about physical shielding?” At least I’d been able to do _some_ of that—on _purpose_ , too, and not in a fit of rage or terror or despair. Though the first time I used it… I forced myself not to shudder, shoving the memory of _that day_ deep within me.

“That’s for another time. Today, I suggest you start trying some other facet of your power. What about shapeshifting?”

Oh, that was a low blow. I shot her a glare, baring my teeth as she grinned. “Fire, water, and air it is.” Bastard—insufferable bastard.

She didn’t push the matter, thankfully—didn’t ask _why_ shape-shifting might be the one power I’d never bother to pull apart and master. Perhaps for the same reason I didn’t want to particularly ask about one key piece of her history, didn’t want to know if King and Gelda had helped when the Spring Court’s ruling family was slain and Zaneli crowned High Lady.

I looked Elizabeth over from head to toe: the Illyrian warrior garb, the sword strapped down her spine, the wings and that general sense of overwhelming power that always radiated from her. Her blue eyes glittered as she tilted her head at me, waiting. “Maybe you should…go.”

“Why? You seemed so insistent that I train you.”

“I can’t concentrate with you around,” I admitted grudgingly, kicking at the snow with one foot. “And go _far_. I can feel you from a room away.”

A suggestive curl shaped her lips.

I rolled my eyes for a bit. “Why don’t you just hide in one of those pocket realms for a bit?”

“Meliodas, darling,” she whined, “there’s no _air_ in there. Do you want me to suffocate?”

“Yes, if it gets you to shut up.”

She staggered back a few steps, clutching dramatically at her heart. “How _rude,_ darling!” she cried before laughing, steadying her stance and giving me a broad smile. “Fine. Practice all you want in privacy.” She jerked her chin at my tattoo. “Give a shout down the bond if you get anything accomplished before breakfast.”

I frowned at the eye in my palm. “What—literally shout at it?”

“You could try rubbing it on certain body parts and I might come faster.”

She vanished into nothing before I could hurl the candle at her.

Alone in the frost-gilded forest, I replayed her words and a quiet chuckle rasped out of me.

* * *

 

I wondered if I should have tested out the bow and arrows I’d been given before asking her to leave. I hadn’t tried out the Illyrian bow yet, though it looked to be a magnificent piece—hadn’t shot anything in months, actually.

I stared at the candle. Nothing happened.

An hour passed.

I thought of everything that enraged me, sickened me; thought of Ludociel and his entitlement, his demands, thought of how Jenna had seen me suffocating and done nothing to help, all that Zaneli had expected of me, thought even of Zeldris and Estarossa and their selfishness during those cold years. Nothing, not even a wisp of smoke emerged.

When my eyes were on the verge of bleeding, I took a break to scrounge through the pack I’d brought. I found fresh bread, a magically warmed canister of stew, and a note from Elizabeth that said:

_I’m bored. Any sparks yet?_

Not surprisingly, a pen clattered in the bottom of the bag.

I grabbed the pen and scribbled my response atop the canister before watching the letter vanish right out of my palm: _No, you snoop. Don’t you have important things to do?_

The letter flitted back a moment later.

_I’m watching Gelda and Zeldris get into it again over their tea. Something you subjected me to when you kicked me off training. I thought this was our day off._

I snorted and wrote back, _Poor little High Lady. Life is so hard._

Paper vanished, then reappeared, her scribble now near the top of the paper, the only bit of clear space left. _Life is better when you’re around, Meliodas darling. And look at how lovely your handwriting is._

I could almost feel her waiting on the other side in the sunny breakfast room, half-paying attention to my youngest brother and the Illyrian warrior’s sparring. A faint smile curved my lips. _You’re a shameless flirt,_ I wrote back.

The page vanished. I watched my open palm, waiting for it to return.

And I was so focused on it that I didn’t notice anyone behind me until the hand covered my mouth and yanked me clean off my feet.

I thrashed, biting and kicking and clawing, shrieking as whoever it was hauled me up. I tried to shove away, snow churning around us like dust behind a carriage on a road, but the arms that gripped me were immovable, like bands of iron and—

A slithering voice sounded in my ear, like oil and tar and rot. “Stop, or I snap your neck.”

I knew that voice. It prowled through my nightmares.

Mael’s favorite torturer.

The Indura.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dunh-dunh-dunhhhh! Hope you enjoyed this update; the next one will be out soon! Please read and review!


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing about being a High Lady is, you're a _leader _. Leaders have to make tough decisions, make sacrifices even when every choice seems to end in failure.__
> 
>    
> Fortunately, this latest choice hasn't gone overly awry--not until Meliodas figures it out, and gets rightfully pissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one! Happy 2019!

The Indura, the monster that had tortured and killed Alioni—that had tortured _me—_ had vanished in the moments after Mael died, suspected to have fled for the King of Erebus. And if it was here, in the mortal lands—

Estarossa was in danger. _Zeldris_ was in danger.

I went pliant in its arms, buying a wisp of time to scan for something, anything to use against it.

“Good,” it hissed in my ear, rotting breath stinking of dead and dying things. “Now tell me—”

Night exploded around us.

The Indura screamed— _screamed_ , in terror and pain and shock—as that darkness swallowed us and I was wrenched from its cold, slimy arms, its nails slicing into my leathers. I collided face-first with packed, icy snow.

I rolled, flipping back, whirling to get my feet under me—

The light returned as I rose into a crouch, knife angled to kill.

And there was Elizabeth, binding the Indura to a snow-shrouded oak with nothing but twisting bands of night, like the ones that had crushed Ludociel’s hand. The way, I was starting to realize, she dealt with all those who took what was not offered. Elizabeth’s own hands were gloved, her leathers gone and a devastating dark gown in its place, her face cold and beautiful as death. “I’d been wondering where you slithered off to, little monster.”

The Indura panted as it struggled against the bonds.

Elizabeth merely sent two spears of night shooting into its warped, ugly wings, the darkness summoned with barely a blink. The Indura shrieked as those spears met flesh—and sank deep into the bark behind it.

“Answer my questions, and you can crawl back to your master,” Elizabeth said, as if she were inquiring about the weather.

“ _Whore,”_ the Indura spat. Silvery blood leaked from its wings, thick and bubbling and hissing as it hit the snow.

Elizabeth smiled, a rictus grin full of raw, dark malice. “You forget that I rather enjoy these things.” She lifted a finger.

The Indura screamed, _“No!”_ and her finger paused, silvery brows arching. “I was sent,” it panted—no longer struggling, limp and useless and empty, “to get him.”

“Why?” Elizabeth asked with that casual, terrifying calm.

“That was my order. I am not to question.” It began to struggle again, dark eyes bugging out. “The king wants him.”

My blood went as cold as the woods against us.

“Why?” Elizabeth repeated sweetly. The Indura began screaming again—this time writhing under the force of a power I could not see, one that sparked my own power to a relentless humming in my veins. I flinched from the genuinely _delighted_ smile on her face as it struggled and howled.

_“Don’tknowdon’tknowdon’tknow!”_

I believed it.

“Where is the king currently?”

“Erebus.”

“Army?”

“Coming soon.”

“How large?”

“Endless.” A horrific, fanatical smile at that. “We have allies in every territory, all waiting. Many of them want their claws in you, _Mael’s Whore.”_

Elizabeth, impassive and icy, tilted her head as if contemplating what to ask next. But she straightened, and King slammed into the snow, sending it flying like water from a puddle. He’d flown in so silently, I hadn’t even heard the beat of his wings. Gelda must have stayed at the house to defend my brothers.

There was no kindness on King’s face as the snow settled, no sign of the male who had spoken to me about change and words and tried to keep Elizabeth from sending me to the Weaver—nothing but the immovable mask of the High Lady’s steelsinger.

The Indura began trembling, and I almost pitied it as King stalked for it, a lion hunting down a mouse. Almost—but didn’t. Not when these woods were so close to the chateau. To my brothers.

Elizabeth came to my side as King reached the Indura. “The next time you try to take him,” she drawled to the Indura, “I kill first; ask questions later.”

King caught her eye. Elizabeth nodded. The Siphons atop his scarred hands flickered like rippling blue fire as he reached for the Indura.

They were gone before it could scream.

I didn’t want to think about where they’d go, what King would do. I hadn’t even known King possessed the ability to winnow, or whatever power he’d channeled through his Siphons. He’d let Elizabeth winnow us both in the other day—unless the power was too draining to be used so lightly.

“Will he kill it?” I rasped, my puffs of breath uneven.

“No.” I shivered at the raw power glazing her taut body, the sheer rage crackling in her eyes. “We’ll use it to send a message to Erebus: if they want to hunt the members of my court, they’ll have to do better than that.”

I started—at the claim she’d made of me, and at the words themselves, what they implied. “You—you _knew_ it was hunting me? That the _king_ was hunting me?”

“I was curious who wanted to snatch you the first moment you were alone.”

I didn’t know where to start. Zaneli had been _right—_ about being hunted, coveted, wanted, tracked like prey. About my safety, to some degree. It didn’t excuse a damn thing. “So you never planned to stay with me while I trained. You used me as _bait—”_

Her eyes were ruthless, cold as the ice around us. “Yes, and I’d do it again. You were safe the entire time.”

A snarl rippled from my throat, fingers curling into claws at my sides. “ _You should have told me!”_

“Maybe next time.”

 _“There will be no next time!”_ I slammed a hand into her shoulder, and she staggered back a step from force of the blow. I blinked in surprise. I’d _forgotten—_ forgotten that strength in my panic, just like with the Weaver, with Zaneli, with everyone I’d faced since my death. I’d forgotten how strong I was. I’d forgotten I could _fight._

“Yes, you did,” Elizabeth snarled— _snarled_ , all fire and fury and burning _rage_ as she read the surprise on my face, her frozen calm shattering. “You forgot that strength, and that you can burn and become darkness, and grow claws. You _forgot.”_ The blue in her eyes was nearly black from the miasma of wrath surrounding her. _“You stopped fighting.”_

She didn’t just mean the Indura. Or the Weaver.

And the rage rose up in me in such a might wave that I had no thought in my head but _fury_ : at myself, at what I’d been forced to do, what had been done to me, to her.

“So what if I did?” I hissed, and shoved her again. “So _what_ if I did?”

I went to push her once more, but Elizabeth winnowed away a few feet. A roar bubbled up in my chest and I stormed for her, snow crunching underfoot. “It’s not easy.” _To escape this, escape her, escape Mael, to keep fighting—to be_ enough _._ The rage ran me over, obliterated me. I lifted my arms to slam my palms into her chest—

And she vanished again.

She appeared behind me, so close that her breath tickled my ear as she breathed, “You have no idea how _not_ easy it is.”

I whirled, grappling for her. She vanished before I could strike her, pound her, _rip her to shreds—_

Elizabeth appeared across the clearing, chuckling. “Try _harder,_ Meliodas darling.”

I couldn’t fold myself into darkness and pockets and air. And if I could—if I could turn myself into smoke, into wind and night and stars, I’d use it to appear right in front of her and smack that smile off her face.

I moved, even if it was futile, even as she rippled into darkness, and I hated her for it—for the wings and ability to move like mist on the wind. She appeared a step away, and I pounced, hands out— _talons_ out—

And slammed into a tree.

She laughed as I bounced back, teeth singing from the pain, talons barking as they shredded through wood. But I was already lunging as she vanished, lunging like I could disappear into the folds of the world as well, track her across eternity—

So I did.

Time slowed and curled, and I could see the darkness of her soul turn to smoke and veer, as if it were running for another spot in the clearing. I hurtled for that spot, even as I felt my own lightness, folding my very self into wind and shadow and dust, the looseness of it radiating out of me all while I aimed for where she was headed—

Elizabeth appeared, a solid figure in my world of smoke and stars.

And her eyes were wide, her mouth split in a grin of wicked delight as I winnowed in front of her and tackled her into the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read and review!


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth's crossed a line. Meliodas is angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter, folks! This should be the last of the super short ones for a while, they're gonna get reeeeeeeeeeally long all over again soon.

I panted, sprawled on top of Elizabeth in the snow while she laughed herself hoarse, head thrown back and those dark cackles practically singing the air in burning fury as my rage burned higher and hotter. “ _Don’t,”_ I snarled into her face, “ _ever,”_ I pushed her rock-hard shoulders, muscle never giving way under the talons curving at my fingertips, “ _use me as bait again.”_

She stopped laughing.

I pushed harder, those nails digging in through her leather. “You said I could be a weapon— _teach me_ to become one. _Don’t_ use me like a pawn. And if being one is part of my _work_ for you, then I’m done.” I bared my teeth in a snarl, fangs crowding my mouth. _“Done.”_

Despite the snow, her body was warm beneath me, and I wasn’t sure I’d realized just how much bigger she was until our bodies were flush—too close. Much, _much_ too close.

Elizabeth cocked her head, loosening one of the chunks of snow now clinging to her hair, silver fanned beneath her like a spray of some Fae beast’s ichor. “Fair enough.”

I shoved off her, snow crunching as I backed away. My talons were gone, as were my fangs—and good _riddance._ I’d never wanted to touch shapeshifting again, and despite my instincts summoning it up, it felt wrong, dredged up memories of sickly-sweet roses and white walls and cages. Pretty, gilded cages and muzzles and leashes.

_Never again._

She hoisted herself up onto her elbows, blue eyes burning with— _curiosity_. I hated her for it. “Do it again. Show me how you did it.”

“No.” The candle she’d brought now lay in pieces, half-buried under the snow. “I want to go back to the chateau.” I was cold, and tired, and she’d…used me. _Lied_ to me.

Her face turned grave. “I’m sorry.”

I wondered how often the High Lady of the Night Court deigned to say those two words. I didn’t care.

I waited while she uncoiled to her feet, rising with the fluid grace of a predator, the snow falling away with a few swipes of her hands. She held out a hand, armored and gloved, her tattoos hidden from view.

It wasn’t just an offer.

 _You forgot,_ she’d said. I had.

“Why does the King of Erebus want me? Because he knows I can nullify the Cauldron’s power with the Book?”

Darkness flickered, the light of the forest dimming the only sign of the temper Elizabeth had once had leashed. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

_You stopped fighting._

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, hand still outstretched. “Let’s eat breakfast, then go home.”

“Liones isn’t my home.”

I could’ve sworn hurt flashed in those blue, blue eyes before she spirited us back to my family’s house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read and review! As always, I love you guys, and thanks so much for giving this a read! Next chapter should be out soon, so keep an eye out for that!


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth makes a peace offering. Meliodas makes a decision. And Arthur...is Arthur, which is to say that the things he does make no sense to anyone who isn't him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I promised you that the next chapter would be out soon, didn't I? And ta-da! Here it is, in all it's 3,000+ word glory. Enjoy!

 My brothers ate breakfast with Elizabeth and me, King gone to wherever he’d taken the Indura to make an example of it. Gelda had flown off to join him the moment we’d returned. She’d given Zeldris a mocking bow, and he’d given her a vulgar gesture I hadn’t realized he knew how to make.

Gelda had merely laughed, her eyes snaking over Zeldris’s ice-blue shirt and dark waistcoat as though she could see right through it, with a predatory intent that, give his hiss of rage, she knew would set him spitting. Then she was gone, leaving my brother on the broad doorstep, his night-black hair ruffled by the chill wind stirred by her mighty wings.

We brought my brothers to the village to mail our letter, Elizabeth glamouring us so we were invisible while they went into the little post office to post them. After we returned home, our good-byes were quick, impersonal—awkward on Estarossa’s part and cold on Zeldris’s. Elizabeth watched them through cold blue eyes as they bade me farewell, and I remembered what she’d said that night—about wanting to roar at them, make them face the cold and the dark and the loneliness of everything I’d faced. Maybe her annoyance now was for me—or maybe it was simply how badly she wanted to return to Liones, to learn what the Indura had been up to.

I’d said as much to Elizabeth while she flew us through the wall, into the warmth of Britannia, then winnowed us to Liones. A mysterious smile—but no reply.

Morning mist still twined through the city and the mountains around it, cloaking the landscape in silver and gray and white, like pale silks had been wrapped around the city. The chill also remained, raising goosebumps—but not nearly as unforgiving as the cold of the mortal world. Elizabeth left me in the foyer, huffing hot air into my frozen palms, without so much as a good-bye.

Hungry again, I found Risling and Vervada, and I gobbled down cheese-and-chive scones while thinking through what I’d seen, what I’d said, what I’d _done._ The winnowing, the _power_ that had surged through me in my anger even when thinking of the likes of Ludociel hadn’t done it…how was it that Elizabeth drew out the best and worst of me every time? Even when she _deserved_ the anger she pulled from me, the rage and irritation and fury, she always seemed to meet it with a laugh and dare me to go higher, stronger, faster, _farther._

_Why?_

Not an hour later, Elizabeth found me in the living room, my feet propped on the couch before the fire, a book in my lap and a cup of rose-and-cinnamon tea on the low table before me. I stood as she entered, scanning her for any sign of injury, tension— _something._ The odd, tight feeling in my chest eased when I found nothing amiss.

“It’s done,” she announced without preamble, dragging a hand through her moonlight-colored hair with a sigh. “We learned what we needed to.” I braced myself to be shut out, to be told that it’d be taken care of, that I wasn’t needed— _go rest go paint go ride go play at being a pretty little doll for your pretty little High Lady—_ but Elizabeth added, “It’s up to you, Meliodas, how much of our methods you want to know about. What you can handle. What we did to the Indura wasn’t pretty.”

A choice. She’d given me another choice—trusted me, for some reason, to know my limits. And what they’d done to the Indura… _good._ I wanted it to hurt, for what it could’ve done to my brothers, what it did to Alioni Beddor—what it did to _me._ “I want to know everything. Take me there.”

“The Indura isn’t in Liones. It’s in the Hewn City, in the Court of Nightmares—where it took King less than an hour to break him.” I waited for more, and as if deciding I wasn’t about to crumple, Elizabeth stalked closer, until less than a foot of the ornate red carpet lay between us. Her ink-colored heels, usually impeccably polished…that was silver blood speckled on them. The Indura’s blood.

Only when I met her eyes did she say, “I’ll show you.”

I knew what she meant, and steadied myself in response, blocking out the murmuring fire and the heels and the lingering cold around my heart. Blocked out everything except the thread of power twining us together. Everything except the wild, starlit darkness of her soul shifting and flowing and moving like a dark miasma as it reached for me and I for it.

Immediately, I was in that antechamber of her mind—a pocket of memory she’d carved for me.

Darkness flowed through me, soft and seductive, echoing up from an abyss of power so great it had no end and no beginning. The kind of power that could wipe out worlds, crush mountains, tame skies and turn battlefields to a rain of blood and fire. The power of the High Lady of the Night Court.

_“Tell me how you tracked him,” King said in the quiet voice that had broken countless enemies._

_I—Elizabeth—leaned against the far wall of the holding cell, arms crossed. King hovered before where the Indura was chained to a chair in the center of the room. A few levels above, the Court of Nightmares reveled on, unaware their High Lady had come._

_I’d have to pay them a visit soon. Remind them who held their leash._

_Soon. But not today. Not when Meliodas had winnowed._

_And he was still pissed as hell at me._

_Rightly so, if I was being honest. But King had learned that a small enemy force had infiltrated the North two days ago, and my suspicions were confirmed. Either to get at Zaneli or at me, they wanted him. Perhaps for their own experimenting._

_The Indura let out a low laugh. “I received word from the king that’s where you were. I don’t know how he knew. I got the order, flew to the wall as fast as I could.”_

_King’s spear was out, spinning slowly beside him, inches from those gauntlet-covered fingers. Chastiefoile—the name was stamped in silver Illyrian runes on the handle. He’d already learned that the Indura and a few others had been stationed on the outskirts of the Illyrian territory. I was half-tempted to dump the Indura in one of the war-camps and see what the Illyrians did to it._

_The Indura’s eyes slid toward me, glowing with a hatred I’d long-since become accustomed to. “Good luck trying to keep him, High Lady.”_

_King said, “Why?”_

_People often made the mistake of assuming Gelda was the wilder one, the one who couldn’t be tamed. But Gelda was all fire, hot temper and blazing courage that could be used to forge and weld. There was an icy rage in King I had never been able to thaw. In the centuries I’d known him, he’d said little about his life, those years in his step-father’s armory, locked in darkness and ice and steel. Perhaps the steelsinger gift had come to him then, perhaps he’d taught himself the language of metal and wind and stone. The camp-lord’s sons hadn’t been forthcoming, either. I knew because I’d met them, asked them, and had shattered their legs when they’d spat on King instead._

_They’d walked again. Eventually._

_The Indura said, “Do you think it is not common knowledge that you took him from Zaneli?”_

_I knew that already. That had been King’s task these days: monitor the situation with the Spring Court, and prepare for our own attack on Erebus._

_But Zaneli had shut down her borders—sealed them so tightly that even flying overhead at night was impossible. And any ears and eyes King had once possessed in the court had gone deaf and blind._

_“The king could help you keep him—consider sparing you, if you worked with him…”_

_As the Indura spoke, I rummaged through its mind, each thought viler and more hideous than the next. It didn’t even know I’d slipped inside, but—there: images of the army that had been built, the twin to the one I’d fought against five centuries ago; of Erebus’s shore full of ships, readying for an assault; of the king, lounging on his throne in his crumbling castle. No sign of Vivian sulking about, or the Cauldron. Not even a whisper of the Book being on their minds. Everything the Indura had confessed was true._

_King looked over his shoulder. The Indura had given him everything. Now it was just babbling to buy time._

_I pushed off the wall. “Break its legs, shred its wings, and dump it off the coast of Erebus. See if it survives.” The Indura began thrashing, begging. I paused by the door and said to the monstrous coward there, “I remember every moment of it. Be grateful I’m letting you live. For now.”_

_I hadn’t let myself see the memories from Under-the-Mountain: of me, of the others…of what it had done to that poor human boy I’d given Mael in Meliodas’s place. I didn’t let myself see what it had been like to beat Meliodas—to torment and torture him._

_I might have splattered it on the walls. And I needed it to send a message more than I needed my own vengeance._

_The Indura was already screaming beneath Chastiefoile’s honed edge when I left the cell._

Then it was done, the memory dissipating. I staggered back, spooling myself, my psyche back into my body as Elizabeth’s blue eyes swept me up and down, searching for a reaction.

Zaneli had closed her borders. “What _situation_ with the Spring Court?”

“None. As of right now. But you know how far Zaneli can be driven to…protect what she thinks is hers.”

The image of scarlet paint drip-drip-dripping down the ruined study wall flashed in my mind, the flash of terror and the burst of power and rage she’d unleashed upon me. Yes, I knew how far she might go—knew it all too well.

“I should have sent Diane that day,” Elizabeth said with soft, dagger-sharp menace.

I snapped my mental shields back up. I had no interest in talking about that day, about her—about any of it. “Thank you for telling me,” I mumbled, and took my book and tea to bring up to my room.

“Meliodas,” she called as I started up the stairs. I didn’t pause. “I am sorry—about deceiving you earlier.”

And this, letting me into her mind, her sanctuary…a peace offering. “I need to write a letter.”

* * *

 

The letter was quick, simple. But each word was a battle.

Not because of my former illiteracy. No, I could now read and write just fine. It was because of the message that Elizabeth, standing in the foyer, now read, eyebrows scrunching together as she scanned the words that would seal my fate:

_I left of my own free will._

_I am cared for and safe. I am grateful for all that you did for me, all that you gave._

_Please don’t come looking for me. I’m not coming back._

She folded it in two and it vanished. “Are you sure?”

I could understand why she asked—why she wanted me to be _certain._ Because after that letter, I _couldn’t_ go back, not without condemning Elizabeth and her family, not without spitting on everything they’d done for me. Not without giving up Liones—and I didn’t want to do that. I glanced to the windows beyond her. The mist wreathing the city had wandered off, revealing a bright, cloudless sky. And somehow, my head felt clearer than it had in days—months.

A city lay out there, that I had barely observed or cared about.

I _wanted_ it—life, _people_. I wanted to see it, feel its rush through my blood. No boundaries, no walls, no limits to what I might encounter or do. _Freedom._

“I am no one’s subject.” Her lips curved up in the slightest mischievous smile, and I wondered if she remembered that she’d told me the same thing once, when I was too lost in my own guilt and despair to understand. “What next?”

“For what it’s worth, I did actually want to give you a day to rest—”

“Don’t coddle me.”

“I’m not. And I’d hardly call our encounter this morning _rest.”_ Her eyes swept me up and down, a glimmer of concern shining there before it winked out. “But you will forgive me if I make assessments based on your current physical condition.”

“Give that it’s _my_ condition, I’ll be the judge of that.” I braced my hands on my hips, staring up at her. “What about the Book of Breathings?”

“Once King returns from dealing with the Indura, he’s to put his _other_ skill set to use and infiltrate the mortal kings’ courts to learn where they’re keeping it—and what their plans might be. And as for the half in Britannia…we’ll go to the Summer Court within a few days, if my request to visit is approved. High Ladies visiting other courts makes everyone jumpy. We’ll deal with the Book then.”

She shut her mouth, no doubt waiting for me to trudge upstairs, to brood and sleep.

Enough—I’d had _enough_ of sleeping, of resting, of self-pity.

I raised my eyebrows at her. “You told me this city was better seen at night. Are you all talk, High Lady, or will you ever bother to show me?”

A low laugh escaped her lips as she looked me over, those star-blue eyes gleaming. When her eyes found mine again, her mouth twisted in a smile so few saw. Real amusement—perhaps a bit of happiness edged with relief. The female behind the High Lady’s mask. “Dinner,” she said. “Tonight. Let’s find out if _you,_ Meliodas darling, are all talk—or if you’ll allow a Lady of Night to take you out on the town.”

* * *

 

Arthur came to my room before we left for dinner. Apparently, we were _all_ going out tonight.

Downstairs, Gelda and Diane were sniping at each other about whether Gelda could fly faster short-distance than Diane would winnow to the same spot (“I mean, I’m the _fastest_ of the fliers, so as long as I was in the air—” “Like hell are your little _wings_ going to beat _teleportation,_ Gelda!”). I assumed King was nearby, ensuring they didn’t do anything too stupid. Hopefully, he’d gotten some rest after dealing with the Indura—and would rest a bit more before heading into the mortal realm to spy on those kings.

Arthur knocked this time before entering, at least, though he didn’t bother waiting for me to say he could come in. Vervada and Risling, who had finished tying back my hair and pinning it up with mother-of-pearl clips, took one look at the delicate male and vanished into puffs of smoke.

“Skittish things,” Arthur sighed mournfully, though the cruel amusement in his smile belied his words. “Wraiths always are.”

“Wraiths?” I twisted in the seat before the vanity, peering up at him. “I thought they were High Fae.”

“Half,” he corrected, surveying my ensemble of cobalt, slate, and silver with a look of vague interest. “Wraiths are nothing but shadow and mist, able to walk through walls, stone—you name it. I don’t even want to know how those two were conceived.” He snorted. “I swear, some High Fae will fuck anything that moves and then some.”

I choked on what could’ve been a laugh or a cough—possibly more the former than the latter. “They make good spies.”

He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Why do you think they’re now whispering in King’s ear that I’m in here?”

I blinked—to _King?_ It would make sense, given that he was their spymaster, but… “I thought they answered to Elizabeth.”

“They answer to both, but they were originally trained by King, and tend to follow his orders over Elizabeth’s in most cases.” Those unholy, calculating eyes swept over me again. “Though with you here, that may well change.”

I didn’t quite have the nerve to ask why, not in the face of that all-knowing grin. “Are they spying on me?”

Arthur snorted at that, perching on the chair beside me. “Not on you. On _me.”_ He frowned at a loose thread in his thundercloud-colored shirt, silver accents making the dark fabric ripple like water. That mane of ginger hair shifted as he raised his head, somehow wild and yet not a hair out of place. “Elizabeth has told them time and time again not to, but I don’t think King will ever trust me fully. So they’re reporting on my movements.” He sniffed. “I’d feel insulted if they didn’t, actually.”

“Why?”

“Because it would mean they didn’t see me as a threat, and that’s exactly what I need to— _oh.”_ His feral grin lightened to something rueful, nearly human. “Why they’re reporting on me? Well, why not?” He shrugged again, peering at himself in the mirror. “I’d be disappointed if Elizabeth’s spymaster trusted me blindly and didn’t keep tabs on me. Especially if it meant going against orders to do so.”

My brow furrowed instinctively. A High Lady being so blatantly undermined… _she_ would’ve been furious at the mere idea. A High Lady’s word was supposed to be absolute—and yet there was one who knew and accepted her subordinate’s disobedience. “Elizabeth doesn’t punish him for it?”

Those violet-gold eyes glowed. “The Court of Dreams is founded on three things: to defend, to honor, and to cherish. Were you expecting brute strength and obedience? Many of Elizabeth’s top ‘officials’ have little to no power in the true way of things. She values loyalty, cunning, and compassion over tradition and hierarchy. And King, despite his disobedience, is acting to defend his court, his people. So, no. Elizabeth does not punish that. There are rules, but they are flexible.”

I didn’t know why I was still surprised. “What about the Tithe?”

Arthur frowned a bit. “What Tithe?”

I stood from the little bench, eyeing my reflection once more before turning abruptly away from it—the eyes that weren’t quite hollow, but weren’t precisely _alive,_ either. I looked better, _felt_ better than I had in a long, long time, but there was still _so far_ to go. “The Tithe—taxes, whatever you call them here. Twice a year.”

“There are taxes on city dwellers, but there is no Tithe.” He clicked his tongue. “But the High Lady of Spring enacts one.”

I didn’t want to think about it entirely, not yet—not with that letter now on its way to her, if not already delivered. So I reached for the small box on the vanity and pulled out his amulet, the one that had borne him out of the Prison so many millennia ago, the one that had ensured it would not keep me, hold me. “Here.” I handed over the gold-and-jewel-encrusted piece. “Thank you.”

Arthur’s brows rose as I dropped it into his waiting palm. “You gave it back.”

“I didn’t realize it was a test.”

He set it back into the case. “Keep it. There’s no magic to it.”

I blinked. “You lied—”

“Oh, not about _everything,”_ he shrugged, already making his way to the door. “You and I do share some of the same demons. I merely gave you what I could not have when I was in your shoes so long ago—something to make you believe you could walk out of the Prison untouched.” His smile was a terrible, beautiful thing. “And you did.”

I gaped at him, all my thoughts having ground to a halt. “But Elizabeth kept looking at it—”

“Because _she_ gave it to me two hundred years ago. She was probably surprised to see it again, and wondered why I’d given it to you. Likely _worried_ why I might have given it to you. Honestly, she has so little faith in me, it’s borderline insulting.”

I clenched my teeth, but Arthur was already breezing through the door with a cheerful, “You’re welcome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, readers! Thanks for sticking around to--wow, chapter 25, huh? This makes it my longest story to date!
> 
> As always, please give me a review, a kudos, or a comment if you enjoyed it! I love knowing what my readers like and don't like, and I love chatting with them too! Thanks for reading, and I hope you're enjoying the story thus far~


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Night Court heads out for a night on the town, Meliodas gets a history lesson, and Elizabeth is ridiculously flirty (as always).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is so. much. fluff in this chapter. I love this scene in ACoMaF itself and I was grinning like an idiot while writing this. Enjoy!

Despite the chill night, every shop was open as we walked through the starlit city, vendors hawking their wares as people bustled about, the city pulsing with _life._ Musicians played in the little squares, and the Palace of Thread and Jewels was packed with shoppers and performers, High Fae and lesser faeries alike joined together to enjoy the night. But we continued past, down to the river itself, the water so smooth that the stars and lights blended on its dark surface like a living ribbon of eternity.

The five of them were unhurried as we strolled across one of the wide marble bridges spanning the Vanya, often moving forward or dropping back to chat with one another. From the ornate lanterns that lined either side of the bridge, faelight cast golden shadows on the wings of the three Illyrians, gilding the talons at the apex of each.

The conversation ranged from the people they knew, matches and teams for sports I’d never heard of (apparently, Arthur was a vicious, obsessive supporter of one), new shops, music they’d heard, clubs they favored… Not a single word on Erebus and the threats we faced—no doubt from secrecy, but I had a feeling it was also because tonight, this time they had together…they did not want the terrible hideous presence intruding. As if they were all just ordinary citizens—even Elizabeth. As if they weren’t the most powerful people in this court, maybe in all of Britannia. And no one, absolutely no one, on the street balked or paled or ran from those five warriors.

There was awe, yes—perhaps a little intimidation, but no _fear._ It was so unusual that I kept silent, merely observing them—their world. The normalcy that they each fought so hard and sacrificed so much to preserve. That I had once raged against, resented.

But there was no place like this in the world. Not so serene. So _loved_ by its people and its rulers.

I was starting to understand why Elizabeth had given up everything to keep it safe.

The other side of the city was even more crowded, with patrons dressed to the nines out to attend the many theaters we passed. I’d never seen a theater before—never seen a play, or a concert, or a symphony, not even when my family had been wealthy and powerful. In our ramshackle village, we’d gotten mummers and minstrels at best—herds of beggars yowling on makeshift instruments at worst. But now I was being paid a _salary,_ and I—I could see one. See a thousand, if I wanted. The prospect was dizzying, and I stumbled a bit before hurrying to catch up.

We strolled along the riverside walkway, past shops and cafes, music spilling from them. And I thought—even as I hung back from the others, my gloved hands stuffed in the pockets of my heavy moss-green overcoat—that the sounds of it all might have been the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard: the people, and the river, and the music; the clank of silverware on plates, the scrape of chairs being pulled out and pushed in, the shouts of vendors hawking their wares as they ambled past, the laughter of children dragging their parents about.

How much had I missed in these months of despair and numbness? How much had I _forgotten?_

But no longer. The lifeblood of Liones thrummed through me, and in rare moments of quiet, I could have sworn I heard the clash of the sea clawing at the distant cliffs, like the heartbeat of the night itself running through the city.

Eventually we entered a small restaurant beside the river, built into the lower level of a two-story building, the whole space bedecked in greens and golds and barely big enough to fit all of us. And three sets of Illyrian wings.

The owner knew them, and kissed them each on the cheek, even Elizabeth. All except for Arthur, whom the owner bowed to before she hustled back into her kitchen, and bade us sit at the large table that was half-in, half-out of the open storefront. The starry night was crisp and breezy, the wind rustling the potted palms placed with loving care along the riverside walkway railing. No doubt they were spelled to keep from dying in the winter—just as the warmth of the restaurant kept the chill from disturbing us or any of those dining in the open air at the river’s edge.

Then the food platters began pouring out, along with the wine and the conversation, and we dined under the stars beside the river. I’d never had such food—warm and rich and savory and spicy, better than anything I’d ever tasted. It seemed to fill not only my stomach, but that lingering hole in my chest, too.

The owner—a slim, dark-skinned female with lovely brown eyes—was standing behind my chair, chatting with Elizabeth about the latest shipment of spices that had come to the Palaces. “The traders were saying the prices might rise, High Lady, especially if rumors about Erebus awakening are correct.”

Down the table, I felt the others’ attention slide to us, even as they kept talking.

Elizabeth leaned back in her seat, swirling her goblet of wine. “We’ll find a way to keep the prices from skyrocketing.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, of course,” the owner said, wringing her fingers a bit. “It’s just…so lovely to have such spices available again—now that…that things are better.”

Elizabeth gave her a gentle smile, the one that made her seem younger, lighter, without the burdens of her past chaining her down. The one that never failed to make me stare like—like some child with a _crush_ (which I most obviously _wasn’t,_ but I was an artist. I was just…captivated by beauty. Yeah). “I wouldn’t be troubling myself at all—not when I like you cooking so much.”

The owner beamed, flushing, and looked to where I’d half-twisted in my seat to watch her. “Is it to your liking, sir?”

The happiness on her face, the satisfaction that only a day of hard work doing something you loved could bring, hit me like a stone.

I—I remembered feeling that way. After painting from morning until night, safe and happy and unconcerned by anything and everything. Once, that was all I wanted from myself, until darkness and cold had silenced that spark in me. I looked to the dishes, then back at her, and said, “I’ve lived in the mortal realm, and in other courts, but I’ve never had food like this. Food that that makes me feel…feel _awake.”_

It sounded just as stupid as it felt coming out, but I could think of no other way to say it, no way to express what her art awoke in me. The owner nodded, though, smiled like she understood and squeezed my shoulder. “Then I’ll bring you a special dessert,” she said, and strode into her kitchen with the air of a female on a mission.

I turned back to my plate, reaching for another platter of the delicious pork, but found Elizabeth’s eyes on me. Her face was softer, more contemplative than I’d ever seen it, lips parted as she gazed at me.

I raised my eyebrows. _What?_

She gave me a cocky grin and leaned in to hear the story Diane was telling about—

I forgot what she was talking about as the owner emerged with a metal goblet full of dark liquid and placed it before Arthur. Elizabeth’s Second hadn’t touched his plate, but pushed the food around like he might actually be trying to be polite. When he saw the goblet laid before him, he flicked his brows up. “You didn’t have to do that.”

The owner shrugged her slim shoulders. “It’s fresh and hot, and we needed the beast for tomorrow’s roast, anyway.”

I had a horrible feeling I knew what was inside.

Arthur swirled the goblet, the dark liquid lapping at the sides like wine, then sipped from it. “You spiced in nicely.” Blood gleamed on his teeth.

The owner bowed. “No one leaves my place hungry,” she declared before walking away.

Indeed, I almost asked Diane to roll me out of the restaurant by the time we were done and Elizabeth had paid the tab, despite the owner’s protests. My muscles were barking thanks to my earlier _training_ (which was the kindest of words for it) in the mortal forest, and at some point during the meal, every part of me I’d used while tackling Elizabeth into the snow had started to ache.

Diane rubbed her stomach in lazy circles as we paused beside the river, leaning against the gilded railing. “I want to go dancing. I won’t be able to fall asleep when I’m this full.” She nudged Gelda, grinning. “The Boar Hat is just up the street.”

Dancing. My body groaned in protest and I glanced about for an ally to shoot down this ridiculous idea.

But King— _King,_ of all people, said, his eyes wholly on Diane, “I’m in.”

“Of course you are,” Gelda grumbled, frowning at him. “Don’t you have to be off for the mortal lands at dawn?”

Diane’s frown now mirrored Gelda’s—as if she realized where and what he’d be doing tomorrow. Those violet eyes darted to King. “We don’t have to—”

“I w _ant_ to,” King interrupted, holding her gaze long enough that Diane eventually dropped it, twisted toward Gelda, and sniped, “Will you deign to join us, O Commander, or do you have plans to ogle your muscles in the mirror?”

Gelda snorted, looping her elbow through Diane’s and leading her up the street. “I’ll go—for the drinks, you ass. No dancing.”

“And thank the Mother for that. You nearly shattered my foot the last time you tried.”

It was an effort not to stare at King as he watched them head up the steep street, arm in ar and bickering with every step. Bright flickers of steel gathered around his shoulders, like they were indeed whispering to him, shielding him, perhaps. His narrow chest expanded with a deep breath that made the liquid metal melt back into the gold of the railing, and then he set into an easy, graceful stroll after them. If King was going with them, then any excuse I might make _not_ to—

I turned pleading eyes to Arthur, but he’d vanished.

“He’s getting more blood in the back to take home with him,” Elizabeth purred in my ear, and I nearly jumped out of my skin, swatting at her shoulder. Her chuckle was warm against my neck. “And then he’ll be going right back to his apartment to gorge himself.”

I tried not to shudder as I faced her. “Why blood?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t seem polite to ask. He’ll tell me if ever he needs to.”

The same answer as always when it came to the High Lady’s Second, I supposed. I frowned up at her. “Are _you_ going dancing?”

She peered over my shoulder at her friends, who had almost scaled the steep street, some people pausing to greet them. “I’d rather walk home,” Elizabeth decided at last. “It’s been a long day, and this face didn’t get this radiant by missing out on beauty sleep.” She winked at me, and I rolled my eyes, beating down the snort of amusement bubbling up in my chest.

Diane turned back at the top of the hill, her purple clothes floating around her in the winter wind, ethereal and beautiful—and waggled her eyebrows at us. Elizabeth made a face up at her and she laughed, followed by short waves from King and Gelda, who’d dropped back to talk with her brother-in-arms.

Elizabeth gestured forward. “Shall we? Or are you too cold?”

Consuming blood with Arthur in the back of the restaurant sounded more appealing than walking in the cold again, but I shook my head and fell into step beside her as we walked along the river toward the bridge. I drank in the city as greedily as Arthur had gobbled down the spiced blood, and I almost stumbled as I spied the glimmer of color across the water.

Liones’ Elysium glowed like a fistful of jewels, as if the paint they used on their houses came alive in the moonlight.

“This is my favorite view in the city,” Elizabeth said softly, stopping at the metal railing along the river walkway and gazing toward the artists’ quarter. “It was my sister’s favorite, too. My mother used to have to drag her kicking and screaming out of Liones, she loved it so much.”

I fumbled for the right response to the quiet sorrow in those words, so different from the High Lady I knew. But instead of something empathetic and meaningful and less _idiotic,_ I found myself asking, “Then why are both your houses on the other side of the river?” I leaned against the railing, watching the reflections of Elysium wobble on the river surface like bright fishes struggling in the current.

“Because I wanted a quiet street—so I could visit this clamor whenever I wished and then have a home to retreat to.” A home indeed. I still wasn’t quite over the townhouse, so different from those of the wealthy in the mortal realm, even from those in—in the Spring Court. Because whatever that manor had been, it wasn’t a home. A prison for me and an obligation for Zaneli, but not a home. Not like the one Elizabeth had created.

“You could have just reordered the city,” I pointed out. “If you wanted the river view on a quiet street.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened with actual _horror_ at the idea. “Why the hell would I change one thing about this place?”

“Isn’t that what High Ladies do?” My breath clouded in front of me in the brisk night, like smoke pouring from a chimney. “Whatever they please?”

Those remarkable night-blue eyes studied my face, something in them _burning_ as she gazed at me. “There are a great many thing that I wish to do, and don’t get to.”

I hadn’t quite realized how close we were standing. “So when you buy jewelry for Arthur, is it to keep yourself in his good graces, or because you’re—together?” I blurted out, and felt heat rush to my face as horror beat fluttering wings wildly in my chest. Oh, gods, I hadn’t thought of how it _sounded—_ what it seemed like _I_ was asking. _You idiot—_

Elizabeth barked a laugh, shaking her head with amusement. “When I was young and stupid, I once invited him to my bed. He laughed himself hoarse. The jewelry is just because I enjoy buying it for a friend who works hard for me, and has my back when I need it. Staying in his good graces is an added bonus.” She nudged me, grinning, her red-painted lips bright against moon-pale skin and windblown quicksilver hair. “You’ll find that I’m dreadfully addicted to giving people expensive gifts. It’s why Diane is so spoiled—not that she couldn’t afford any of that herself. Damned thief.”

None of it surprised me, just reaffirmed the suspicions I’d harbored. “And you didn’t marry anyone.” _Might as well go all-in if you’re going to ask stupid questions, you idiot._

“So many _questions_ tonight, darling.” I glared at her until she sighed. “I’ve had lovers, but I never felt tempted to invite one of them to share a life with me. And I honestly think that if I’d asked, they all would’ve said no.”

“I would’ve thought they’d all be fighting to win your hand.” _Like Ludociel._

“Marrying me would mean a life with a target on your back.” Her smile was bitter now, dripping poison. “And if there were offspring, then a life of knowing they’d be hunted from the moment they were conceived. Everyone knows what happened to my family—and my people know that beyond our borders, we are despised as monsters.”

I still didn’t know the full story, perhaps never would, but I asked, “Why? Why are you hated, if all of _this—”_ I flung my arm out toward Elysium, toward the bustling city, the Palaces and the glowing theaters “—is here? Why keep the truth of this place a secret? It’s a shame no one knows about it—about the Court of Dreams.” _About what goodness lies waiting in the dark._

“There was a time when the Night Court _was_ a Court of Nightmares, every piece of it steeped in blood and poison, and was ruled from the Hewn City—long, long ago. An ancient High Lady, however, had a different vision, and rather than allowing the world to see her territory vulnerable at a time of change, she sealed the borders and staged a coup, eliminating the worst of the courtiers and predators, building Liones for the dreamers, establishing peace and trade.” Her eyes blazed, as if she could see all the way back in time to see it. With those remarkable gifts of hers, it wouldn’t surprise me.

“To preserve it,” Elizabeth continued, “she kept it a secret, and so did her offspring, and their offspring. There are many spells on the city itself—laid by her, and her Heirs, that make those who trade here unable to spill our secrets, and grant them adept skills at lying in order to keep the origin of their goods, their ships, hidden from the rest of the world. Legend says that the ancient High Lady cast her very life’s blood upon the stones and the river Vanya to keep that spell eternal.

“But along the way, despite her best intentions, darkness grew again—not as bad as it had once been, but bad enough that there is a permanent divide within my court. We allow the world to see the other half, to fear and hate them-so that they might never guess this place thrives here. And we allow the Court of Nightmares to revel on, blind to Liones’ existence, because we know that without them, there are some courts and kingdoms that might readily strike. And an invasion, should it succeed, could result in the discovery of the many, many secrets we’ve kept from the other High Ladies and courts these millennia.”

A Court of Nightmares…to protect the dreamers. “So truly none of the others know? In the other courts?”

“Not a soul. You will not find it on a single map, or mentioned in any book beyond those written here. Perhaps it is our loss to be so contained and isolated, but…” She gestured to the city around us. “My people do not seem to be suffering much for it.”

Indeed, they did not. Thanks to the High Lady standing before me—and her Inner Circle. Her _family._ “Are you worried about King going to the mortal lands tomorrow?”

 She tapped a finger against the rail. “Of course I am. But King has infiltrated places far more harrowing than a few mortal courts. He’d find my worrying insulting—not, of course, that I’m allowed to find it annoying when he starts motherhenning about.” She sounded more fond than irritated, though, and I caught myself on the edge of a grin of my own—King, in those moments when the ice melted, did have the tendency to worry about anything and everything. It was rather endearing.

But when the ice was _there…_ “Does he mind what he does?” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and I waved my hand, trying to find the words for what I was asking. “Not the spying. What he did to the Indura today.”

She loosed a breath, her exhale turning into a puff of cold-wrought smoke in the wintery air. “It’s hard to tell with him—and he’d never tell me. I’ve witnessed Gelda rip apart opponents with her bare hands and then puke her guts up when the carnage stopped, sometimes even mourn them. But King…Gelda tries, I try—but I think the only person who ever gets him to admit any sort of deep feeling is Diane, and that’s only when she’s pestered him to the point where even his infinite patience has run out.”

I smiled a bit into my thick, cream-colored scarf. “But he and Diane—they never…?”

“That’s between them—and Gelda. I’m not stupid or arrogant enough to get in the middle of it.” Which I certainly would be if I shoved my nose in their business.

We walked in silence across the packed, moonlit bridge to the other side of the river. My muscles quivered at the steep hills between us and the townhouse.

I was about to beg Elizabeth to fly me home when I caught strands of music pouring from a group of performers outside a restaurant.

My hands slackened at my sides. I’d heard that music once before—once, so lost to delirium and sickness and despair that my mind had been crumbling, held captive by Mael and facing another death-trial, when fear and sickness had nearly claimed my life. When I had been so held captive by terror that I’d hallucinated— _hallucinated_ as this music poured into my cell in that rotting prison Under-the-Mountain…and kept me from shattering.

And once more, the beauty of it hit me, the layering and swaying, the joy and the peace, the _life_ within it.

They had never played a piece like it Under-the-Mountain—never this sort of music. And I’d never heard music in my cell save for that one time.

“You,” I breathed, not taking my eyes from the musicians playing so skillfully that even the diners had set down their forks in the cafes nearby. “You sent that music into my cell.” _You saved me._ “Why?”

Elizabeth voice was hoarse. “Because you were breaking. And I couldn’t find another way to save you than to give you some of the goodness left in the world—anything I could.”

The music swelled and built. I’d seen a palace in the sky when I’d hallucinated—a place between sunset and dawn, a house of moonstone pillars, the glittering lights of Elysium. “I saw the Night Court.” The true court, the beauty that lay in its darkness and the secret Elizabeth had served Mael to protect. And it had _saved me,_ pieced me back together and pulled me back from the edge.

She glanced sidelong at me. “I didn’t send those images to you.”

I didn’t care. Not as that music—the music of my…my _home—_ continued to play, and she kept gazing at me, starlit blue eyes awash with emotions I couldn’t understand or explain. “Thank you. For everything—for what you did, and keep doing. Then…and now.”

“Even after the Weaver? After this morning with my trap for the Indura?”

My nostrils flared. “You ruin everything.”

Elizabeth laughed, the sound unfurling like a new part of the symphony before me, shining and silver and full of light, and I didn’t notice if people were staring as she slid an arm under my legs, and shot us both into the sky.

I could learn to love it, I realized. The flying.

* * *

 

I was reading in bed, listening to the merry chatter of the toasty birch fire across the room, when I turned the page of my book and a piece of paper fell out.

I took one look at the cream stationary and the elegant scrawl and sat up straight.

On it, Elizabeth had written,

_I might be a shameless flirt, but at least I don’t have a horrible temper and a fuse as short as your stature. You should come and tend to my wounds from our squabble in the snow. I’m bruised all over thanks to you._

Something clicked against the nightstand, and a pen rolled across the polished mahogany. Hissing with irritation, I snatched it up and scribbled:

_Some of us are trying to read. Go lick your wounds and leave me be._

The paper vanished.

It was gone for a while—far longer than it should have taken to write the few words that appeared on the paper when it returned.

_I’d much rather you licked my wounds for me._

My heart pounded, faster and faster, and a strange sort of _rush_ went through my veins as I read the sentence again and again. A challenge.

 _En garde,_ then.

I clamped my lips shut to keep from grinning like a fool as I wrote,

_Lick you where, exactly?_

The paper vanished before I’d even completed the final mark.

Her reply was a long time coming. Then,

_Wherever you want to lick me, Meliodas._

_I’d like to start with “Everywhere”, but then again, I’ve been told my expectations are “greedy” and “unrealistic”. I can choose, of course, if necessary._

I wrote back,

_Let’s hope my licking is better than yours. I remember how horrible you were at it Under-the-Mountain._

Lie. She’d licked away my tears when I’d been a moment away from shattering.

She’d done it to keep me distracted—keep me _angry._ Because anger was better than feeling nothing; because anger and hatred were the long-lasting fuel in the endless dark of my despair. The same way that music had kept me from breaking.

Jenna had come to patch me up a few times, after revels and trials, but no one had risked quite so much in keeping me not only alive, but as mentally intact as I could be under the circumstances. Just as she’d been doing these past few weeks—taunting and teasing me to keep the hollowness at bay. Just as she was doing now.

 _I was under duress,_ her next note read. _If you want, I’d be more than happy to prove you wrong. I have it on good authority that I’m very, very good at licking._

That lightning-sharp _rush_ chased its way through my veins again, and I tried to keep the heat from rising to my face as I wrote back, _Good night._

A heartbeat later, her note said, _Try not to moan too loudly when you dream about me. I need my beauty rest._

I got up, chucked the letter in the burbling fire, and gave it a vulgar gesture.

I could have sworn laughter rumbled down the hall.

* * *

 

I didn’t dream about Elizabeth.

I dreamed about the Indura, its claws on me, gripping me as I was beaten and tortured and brutalized beyond measure. I dreamed about its hissing laughter and foul stench.

But I slept through the night. And did not wake once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read and review! I adore you all, and thank you so much for reading!


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meliodas trains for the first time, Gelda is snarky, and Elizabeth is distracting. At least until it all goes wrong, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meliodas is ridiculously thirsty in this. ms maas why was feyre so thirsty. help. i can't write thirst to save my life and i never want to again

Gelda might have been all cocky grins and vulgarity most of the time, but in the sparring ring in a rock-carved courtyard atop the House of Wind the next afternoon, she was a stone-cold killer.

And when those lethal instincts were turned on me …

Beneath the fighting leathers, even with the brisk temperature, my skin was slick with sweat. Each breath ravaged my throat, and my arms trembled so badly that any time I so much as tried to use my fingers, my pinkie would start shaking uncontrollably. It had gotten to the point that I’d spend the moments between practices just staring at it, half-amused and half-horrified.

I was watching it wobble of its own accord when Gelda closed the gap between us, gripped my hand, and said, “ _This_ is because you’re hitting on the wrong knuckles. Top two—pointer and middle finger—that’s where the punches should connect. Hitting _here,”_ she said, tapping a callused finger on the already-bruised bit of skin in the vee between my pinky and ring finger, “will do more damage to you than to your opponent. You’re lucky the Indura didn’t want to get in a fistfight.”

“I don’t think it can really _make_ a proper fist.”

Her mouth twisted, curling up at the corners. “Semantics.”

We’d been going at it for an hour now, walking through the basic steps of hand-to-hand combat. It turned out that I might have been good at hunting, at archery, but using my right side? Pathetic. I was as uncoordinated as a newborn fawn attempting to walk on ice. Punching _and_ stepping with the right side of my body simultaneously had been nearly impossible, and I’d stumbled into Gelda more often than I’d hit her. The left punches—those were easy.

“Get a drink,” she commanded after a moment of watching me try and make a proper fist. “Then we’re working on your core. No point in learning to punch if you can’t even hold your stance.”

I dipped my head in acknowledgement, then frowned toward the sound of clashing blades in the open sparring ring across from us. King, surprisingly, had returned from the mortal realm by lunchtime. Diane, of course, had intercepted him first, but I’d gotten a secondhand report from Elizabeth that he’d found some sort of barrier around the queens’ palace, and had needed to return to assess what might be done about it.

Assess—and brood, it seemed, since King had barely managed a polite hello to me before launching into sparring with Elizabeth, his face grim and tight. They’d been at it now for over an hour, their slender blades like flashes of quicksilver as they moved around and around in a strange sort of dance. I wondered if it was as much for practice as it was for Elizabeth to help her spymaster work off his frustration.

At some point since I’d last glanced their way, despite the brisk temperature and weak sunlight, they’d both removed their leather jackets and shirts.

Their arms, limned with muscle rippling under smooth skin, were both covered in the same kind of tattoos that adorned my own hand and forearm, the mark of my bargain with Elizabeth. The ink flowed over their shoulders and along their chests (at least, I presumed it did for Elizabeth; her coverings concealed most of her chest, and thank goodness for small measures of propriety), swirling patterns seeming to move as fluidly as the warriors who bore them as the clash of blades continued. Between their wings, a line of them ran down the column of their spine, right beneath where I’d learned Illyrians typically strapped their blades.

“We get the tattoos when we’re initiated as Illyrian warriors—for luck and glory on the battlefield,” Gelda explained, following my stare. I doubted she was drinking in the rest of the image, though: the deadly ferocity that blazed in eyes of blue and amber, the lithe bodies of the two warriors gleaming with sweat in the sunlight, the feral grace with which they moved, the rippling strength in their backs, surrounding those mighty, beautiful wings.

_Death on swift wings._

The title came out of nowhere, and for a moment, I saw the painting I’d create: the darkness of those wings, faintly illuminated with lines of red and gold by the radiant winter sun, the glare off their blades, the harshness of the tattoos against the inhuman beauty of their faces—

I blinked, and the image was gone, like a cloud of hot breath on a cold night.

Gelda jerked her chin toward her siblings. “Elizabeth is out of shape and won’t admit it, but King is too polite to beat her into the dirt.”

If _that_ was out of shape, the sight of _in shape_ would probably kill me on the spot. Cauldron boil me, what the hell did they _eat_ to look like that?

My knees wobbled a bit as I strode to the stool where Gelda had brought a pitcher of water and two glasses. I poured one for myself, my pinkie trembling uncontrollably again.

My tattoo, I realized, had been made with Illyrian markings. Perhaps Elizabeth’s own way of wishing me luck and glory while facing Mael.

Luck and glory. I wouldn’t mind a little of either of those things these days.

Gelda filled a glass for herself and clinked it against mine cheerfully, so at odds from the brutal taskmaster who, moments ago, had me walking through punches, hitting her sparring pads, and trying not to crumple on the ground to beg for death. So at odds from the female who had gone head to head with my little brother, unable to resist matching herself against Zeldris’s spirit of steel and flame.

“So,” Gelda drawled, gulping down the water. Behind us, Elizabeth and King clashed, separated, and clashed again. “When are you going to talk about how you wrote a letter to Zaneli, telling her you’ve left for good?”

The question hit me so viciously, _violently,_ that I sniped, “How about when you talk about how you tease and taunt Diane to hide whatever it is you feel for her?” Because I had no doubt that she was well aware of the role she played in their little tangled web.

The beat of crunching steps and clashing blades behind us stumbled—then resumed.

Gelda let out a startled, rough laugh, as though she hadn’t quite been prepared for that. _Good. Let her see how it feels._ “Old news.”

“I have a feeling that’s what she probably says about you.”

Her eyes flashed savagely, scarlet Siphons blazing up for a heartbeat before she set down her empty glass. “Get back in the ring,” she snapped, once again the commander, prowling back toward the sparring ring. “No core exercises. Just fists. You wanna talk shit, then back it up, _newbie.”_

I followed, back straight, unwilling to show weakness—but the question she’d asked swarmed in my skull, bouncing around with a dreadful mocking ring. _You’ve left for good, you’ve left for good, you’ve left for good._

I had—I’d _meant_ it. But without knowing what she thought, if she’d even care that much… No, I knew she’d care—care _too_ much. She’d probably trashed the manor in her rage.

If my mere mention of her suffocating me had caused her to destroy her study, then this, this perceived _betrayal…_ I had been frightened by those fits of pure rage, cowed by them, made small and meek so as not to provoke them. And it _had_ been love, once—I had loved her so deeply, so greatly, but…

“Elizabeth told you?” I didn’t quite recognize my voice—the coldness of it, the venom seeping up from that hole in my chest.

Gelda had the wisdom to look a bit nervous at the expression on my face. “She informed King, who is…monitoring things and needs to know. King told me.”

“I assume it was while you were out drinking and dancing.” I stepped back into the ring, my water forgotten.

“Hey,” Gelda said, catching my arm. The look in those scarlet eyes had softened a bit, gilded brilliant gold in the sunlight. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to hit a nerve. King only told me because I told him _I_ needed to know for my own forces, to know what to expect. None of us…we don’t think it’s a joke, Meliodas. What you did was a hard call. A really damn hard call. It was just my shitty way of trying to see if you needed to talk about it. I’m sorry,” she repeated, letting go.

The stumbling words, the earnestness in her eyes…she meant it. For a court the world considered liars and monsters, they were some of the most honest people I’d ever met. I nodded as I resumed my place. “All right.”

Though Elizabeth kept at it with King, never missing a beat, I could have sworn her eyes were on me—had been on me from the moment Gelda had asked me that question.

Gelda shoved her hands into the sparring pads and held them up. “Thirty one-two punches, then forty, then fifty.” I winced at her over her gloves as I wrapped my hands. “You didn’t answer my question,” she added with a tentative smile—one I doubted her soldiers or Illyrian brethren ever saw.

It _had_ been love, and I’d meant it—the happiness, the lust, the peace… I’d felt all of those things. Once.

I positioned my legs at twelve and five and lifted my hands up toward my face.

But maybe those things had blinded me, too.

Maybe they’d been a blanket over my eyes about the temper. The need for control, the need to protect that ran so deep she’d _locked me up._ Like a prisoner in what was supposed to be my _home._

“I’m fine,” I said, stepping and jabbing with my right side. Fluid—smooth like silk, as if my immortal body had finally aligned. My fist slammed into Gelda’s sparring pad, snatching back as fast as a snake’s bite as I struck with my left, shoulder and foot twisting.

“One,” Gelda counted. Again, I struck, one-two. “Two. And fine is good—fine is great!”

Again, again, again.

We both knew “fine” was a lie.

I had done everything— _everything_ for that love. I had ripped myself to shreds, I had killed innocents and debased myself and she had _sat_ beside Mael on that iron throne. And she couldn’t do anything, hadn’t _risked it_ despite the fact that every night was a new risk for _me,_ hadn’t done anything until there was one night left and all she’d wanted to do wasn’t free me, but _fuck_ me, and—

Again, again, again. One-two; one-two; one-two—

And when Mael had broken me, when he had snapped my bones and made my blood boil in my veins, made me scream and claw and beg for anything, _anyone_ to save me, she’d just knelt and begged him. She hadn’t tried to kill him, hadn’t crawled for me. Yes, she’d fought for me—but I’d fought harder for her.

Again, again, again, each pound of my fists on the sparring pads a question and an answer.

And she had the _nerve_ once her powers were back to shove me in a cage. The nerve to say I was no longer _useful;_ I was to be cloistered for _her_ peace of mind. She’d given me everything I needed to become myself, to feel safe, and when she got what she wanted—when she got her power back, her lands back…she stopped trying. She was still good, still _Zaneli,_ but she was just…wrong.

Then I was sobbing through my clenched teeth, the tears washing away that infected wound, and I didn’t care that Gelda was there, or Elizabeth or King.

The clashing steel stopped.

My fists connected with bare skin, and I realized I’d punched through the sparring pads—no, _burned_ through them, with the power that had brought me back to life, and—

And I stopped, too.

The wrappings around my hands were now mere smudges of soot. Gelda’s upraised palms remained before me—ready to take the blow, if I needed to make it. “I’m all right,” she said quietly. Gently.

And maybe I was exhausted and broken, but I breathed, “I killed them.” Two innocents, who had committed no crime except for daring to live under Mael’s regime, whose sole offense had been standing between me and freedom, and I’d _killed them._ Killed them in cold blood—an ash dagger to the chest, watching the light in their eyes fade, one cursing me, the other blessing me. My hands unclean, even now.

I hadn’t said the words aloud since it had happened.

Gelda’s lips tightened. “I know.” Not condemnation, not praise. Just grim understanding.

My hands slacked as another shuddering sob worked its way through me. “It should have been me.”

And there it was.

Standing there under the cloudless sky, the winter sun beating on my head, nothing around me save for rock, no shadows in which to hide, nothing to cling to… There it was.

The truth.

Darkness swept in, soothing, gentle darkness—no, shade—and a sweat-slick female body halted before me. Gentle fingers lifted my chin until I looked up…at Elizabeth’s face. Eyes the deep blue of midnight bored into me, achingly sad and so horribly _understanding_ that the tears only came faster.

Her wings had wrapped around us, cocooned us, the sunlight casting the membrane in gold and red. Beyond us, outside, in another world maybe, the sounds of steel on steel—Gelda and King sparring—began.

“You will feel that way every day for the rest of your life,” Elizabeth said. This close, I could smell the sweat on her, the storm-and-citrus scent beneath it. The grief and sorrow in her eyes ached deep within me, but she held my chin firm when I tried to drop my gaze. “And I know this because I have felt that way every day since my father and sister were slaughtered and I had to bury them myself, and even retribution didn’t fix it.” She wiped away the tears on one cheek, then another. “You can either let it wreck you, let it get you killed like it nearly did with the Weaver, or you can learn to live with it.”

For a long moment, I just stared at the open, calm face—maybe her _true_ face, the one beneath all the masks she wore to keep her people safe. “I’m sorry—about your family,” I rasped.

“I’m sorry I didn’t find a way to spare you from what happened Under-the-Mountain,” Elizabeth murmured with equal quiet. “From dying. From _wanting_ to die.” I began to shake my head, but she said, “I have two kinds of nightmares: the ones where I’m once again Mael’s whore or my friends are…and the ones where I hear your neck snap and see the light leave your eyes.”

I had no answer to that—to the shadow-soft honestly in her rich, warm voice. So I examined the tattoos on her chest and arms, the glow of her tan skin, so golden now that she was no longer caged inside that mountain. _Luck and glory._

I stopped my perusal when I got to the vee of muscles that flowed beneath the waist of her leather pants. Instead, I flexed my hand in front of me, my skin warm from the heat that had burned through those pads.

“Ah,” she remarked, and she almost seemed to smile, wings sweeping back as she folded them gracefully behind her. “That.”

I squinted at the flood of sunlight. “Autumn Court, right?”

She took my hand, examining it, the skin already bruised from sparring. “Right. A gift from its High Lady, Jelamet.”

Jenna’s father. Jenna—I wondered what she made of all this. If she missed me. If Ludociel continued to…prey on her.

Still sparring, Gelda and King were trying their best—and failing miserably—not to look like they were eavesdropping.

“Alas, I’m not well versed in the complexities of the other High Ladies’ elemental gifts,” Elizabeth sighed, gently folding my fingers over, the ink rippling on my fair skin, “but we can figure it out. Day-by-day, if need be.”

“If you’re the most powerful High Lady in history…does that mean the drop I got from you holds more sway over the others?” Why I’d been able to break into her head that one time, to see through her eyes?

“Give it a try.” She jerked her chin toward me. “See if you can summon darkness. I won’t ask you to try to winnow,” she added with a wicked grin.

“I don’t know how I did it to begin with.”

“Will it into being.”

I gave her a flat stare.

She shrugged. “Try thinking of me—how good-looking I am. How talented—”

“How arrogant.”

“That, too.” She crossed her arms over the bindings around her otherwise bare chest, the movement making the muscles in her stomach flicker.

“Put on a shirt while you’re at it,” I quipped.

A feline smile. “What, don’t like what you see?”

“I’m surprised there aren’t more mirrors in this house, since you seem to love looking at yourself so much.”

King launched into a coughing fit. Gelda just turned away, a hand clamped over her mouth. Elizabeth’s lips twitched. “There’s the Meliodas I adore.”

I scowled, but closed my eyes and tried to look inward—toward any dark corner of myself I could find. There were too many.

Far too many.

And right now—right now they each contained that letter I’d written yesterday.

A good-bye.

For my own sanity, my _own_ safety _…_

 “There are different kinds of darkness,” Elizabeth murmured. I kept my eyes closed as her voice washed over me. “There is the darkness that frightens, the darkness that soothes, the darkness that is restful.” I pictured each in turn, let fear and calm and peace run through me as I passed through each one. “There is the darkness of lovers, and the darkness of assassins. It becomes what the bearer wishes it to be, needs it to be. It is not wholly bad or good.”

I only saw the darkness of that dungeon cell, the darkness of the Bone Carver’s lair.

Gelda swore, but King murmured a soft challenge that had their blades striking again.

“Open your eyes.” I did.

And I found darkness all around me. Not from me, but from _Elizabeth._ As if the sparring ring had been wiped away, as if the world had yet to begin.

Quiet.

Soft.

Peaceful.

Lights began twinkling—little stars, blooming irises of blue and purple and white, like jewels sprinkled on black velvet. I reached a hand out toward one and starlight danced on my fingertips. Far away, perhaps in another universe, King and Gelda sparred in the dark, no doubt using it as a training exercise.

I shifted the star between my fingers, like a coin in the hand of a magician. Here in the soothing, sparkling dark, a steady breath filled my lungs.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done such a thing. Breathed easily.

Then the darkness splintered and vanished, swifter than smoke on a wind. I found myself blinking back in the blinding sun, arm still out, Elizabeth still before me.

Still without a shirt.

She said, “We can work on it later. For now—” she sniffed, her nose wrinkling “—go take a bath.”

I gave her a particularly vulgar gesture—and asked Gelda to fly me home instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u have thumbs u'll do what u want


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More training, more arguing, a lot less crying--and a lot more flirting. From everyone. Every-fuckin'-one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just flying through chapters this week, huh? Enjoy!

“Don’t dance so much on your toes,” Gelda instructed me four days later, as we spent the unusually warm afternoon in the sparring ring. “Feet planted, daggers up. Eyes on mine. If you were on a battlefield, you would have been dead with that maneuver.” She demonstrated the stance, and I mimicked it. “As it is now, your fighting style leaves too many openings. You need to balance offense and defense.”

Arthur snorted, picking at his nails while he lounged in a chaise. “He heard you the first ten times you said it, Gelda.”

“Keep talking, Arthur, and I’ll drag you into the ring and see how much practice _you’ve_ actually been doing.”

Arthur just continued cleaning his nails—with a tiny bone, I realized. From what creature, I didn’t want to know. “Touch me, Gelda, and I’ll remove your favorite parts. Small as they might be.”

She let out a low chuckle. Standing between them in the sparring ring atop the House of Wind, a dagger in each hand, sweat sliding down my body from the hours of practice, I wondered if I should find a way to slip out. Perhaps winnow—though I hadn’t managed to do it again since that morning in the mortal realm, despite my quiet efforts in the privacy of my own bedroom.

Four days of this—this training with her, working with Elizabeth afterward on trying to summon flame or darkness. Unsurprisingly, I made more progress with the former than the latter.

Word had not yet arrived from the Summer Court concerning our potential “visit”. Or from the Spring Court regarding that final goodbye I’d written to Zaneli. I hadn’t yet decided if that was a good thing. King continued his attempt to infiltrate the human kings’ courts, his network of spies now seeking a foothold to get inside. That he hadn’t managed to do so yet had made him quieter than usual—colder.

Arthur’s violet-gold eyes flicked up from his nails. “Good. You can play with him.”

“Play with who?” inquired Diane, stepping from the shadows of the stairwell.

Gelda’s nostrils flared. “Where’d you go the other night?” she asked Diane without so much as a nod of greeting. “I didn’t see you leave the Boar Hat.” The Boar Hat, I’d learned, was their usual dance hall for drinking and revelry.

They’d dragged me out two nights ago—and I’d spent most of the time sitting in their booth, nursing my ale, talking over the music with King who had arrived content to brood, but reluctantly joined me in observing Elizabeth holding court at the bar. Females and males watched Elizabeth through the hall—and the steelsinger and I made a game of betting on who, exactly, would work up the nerve to invite the High Lady home. The one who got it wrong, since I’d learned quickly that the Court of Dreams was fiercely competitive when it came to revelry, had to buy the other a drink.

Unsurprisingly, King won every round, even when ridiculously inebriated. But at least he was smiling by the end of the night, much to Diane’s delight when she’d at last stumbled back to our table to chug another drink before prancing onto the dance floor again.

Elizabeth didn’t accept any offers that came her way, no matter how beautiful they were, no matter how they smiled and laughed. And her refusals were polite—firm, but unfailingly polite.

Had she been with anyone since Mael? Did she _want_ another person in her bed after what she’d suffered at the self-fashioned High King’s hands? Even the wine hadn’t given me the nerve to ask King about it.

Diane, it seemed, went to the Boar Hat more than anyone else—practically lived there, actually. She shrugged at Gelda’s demand and another chaise like Arthur’s appeared. “I just went…out,” she said, plopping down.

Gelda raised her eyebrows. “Alone?”

“Last I was aware,” Diane drawled, leaning back in the chair, “I didn’t take orders from you, Gelda. Or report to you. So where I was, and who, if anyone, I was with, is none of your damn concern.”

“You didn’t tell King, either.”

I paused, weighing those words, Gelda’s stiff shoulders. Yes, there was some tension between her and Diane that resulted in that bickering, but perhaps…perhaps…Gelda gladly accepted the role of buffer not to keep them apart, but to keep the fragile remains of the steelsinger’s heart from hurt. From being _old news,_ as I’d called her.

Gelda finally remembered I’d been standing in front of her, noted the look of understanding on my face, and gave me a warning one in return. _Fair enough._

I shrugged and took a moment to set down the daggers and catch my breath. For a heartbeat, I wished Zeldris were there, if only to see _them_ go head to head. We hadn’t heard from my brothers—or the mortal kings. I wondered when we’d send another letter or try another route.

“Why, exactly,” Gelda said to Arthur and Diane, not even bothering to sound unpleasant, “are you two _nobles_ here?”

Diane closed her eyes as she tipped her head back, sunning her golden face with the same irreverence that Gelda perhaps sought to shield King from—and Diane herself perhaps tried to shield King from as well. “Elizabeth is coming in a few moments to give us some news, apparently. Didn’t Arthur tell you?”

“I forgot,” Arthur sighed, still picking at his nails. “I was having far too much fun watching Meliodas evade Gelda’s tried and true techniques to get people to do what she wants to bother with such unimportant information.”

Gelda’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve been here for an hour.”

He shrugged, those unholy eyes gleaming. “Oops.”

Gelda threw up her hands. “Get off your ass and give me twenty lunges—”

A vicious, unearthly snarl cut her off.

But Elizabeth strolled out of the stairwell with the air of a cat who got the cream, and I couldn’t decide if I should be relieved or disappointed that Gelda versus Arthur (as amusing a fight as that would be) was put to a sudden stop.

She was in her fine clothes, not fighting leathers, her wings nowhere in sight. Elizabeth looked at them, at me, at the daggers I’d left in the dirt, and then said, “Sorry to interrupt while things were getting interesting.”

“Fortunately for Gelda,” Arthur drawled, nestling back into his chaise with a similar aura of self-satisfaction, “you arrived right on time.”

Gelda snarled halfheartedly at him. Elizabeth laughed and said to no one in particular, “Ready to go on a summer holiday?”

Diane tilted her head. “The Summer Court invited you.”

“Of course they did, I’m utterly charming. Meliodas, Arthur, and I are going tomorrow.”

Only the three of us? Gelda seemed to have the same thought, her wings rustling as she crossed her arms and faced Elizabeth. “The Summer Court is full of hotheaded fools and arrogant pricks,” she warned. “I should join you.”

“You’d fit right in,” Arthur crooned. “Too bad you still aren’t going.”

Gelda pointed a finger at him. “Watch it, Arthur.”

He bared his teeth in a wicked smile. “Believe me, I’d prefer not to go, either.”

I clamped my lips shut—to keep from smiling or grimacing, I didn’t know.

Elizabeth rubbed her temples. “Gelda, considering the last time you visited, it didn’t end well—”

“I wrecked _one_ building—”

“ _And,”_ Elizabeth cut her off, “considering the fact that they are utterly terrified of sweet Arthur, _he_ is the wiser choice.”

I didn’t know if there was anyone alive who _wasn’t_ utterly terrified of him.

“It could easily be a trap,” Gelda pushed. “Who’s to say the delay in replying wasn’t because they’re contacting our enemies to ambush you?”

“That is _also_ why Arthur is coming,” Elizabeth said simply, as if that was all the explanation needed.

Arthur was frowning—bored and annoyed.

Elizabeth said, almost _too_ casually, “There is also a great deal of treasure to be found in the Summer Court. If the Book is hidden, Arthur, you might find other objects to your liking.”

“Shit,” Gelda half-snapped, throwing up her hands again in clear exasperation. “Really, Elizabeth? It’s bad enough we’re stealing from them, but robbing them blind on top of it—”

“Elizabeth _does_ have a point,” Arthur interrupted. “Their High Lady is young and untested. I doubt she’s had much time to catalog her inherited hoard since she was appointed Under-the-Mountain. I doubt she’ll know anything is missing. Very well, Elizabeth—I’m in.”

No better than a firedrake guarding its trove indeed. Diane gave me a secret, subtle look that conveyed the same thing, and I swallowed a chuckle.

Gelda started to object again, but Elizabeth cut her off before she could get the words out, voice deadly-soft. “I will need you—not Arthur—in the human realm. The Summer Court has banned you for eternity, and though your presence would be a good distraction while Meliodas does what he has to, it could lead to more trouble than it’s worth.”

I stiffened. What I had to do—meaning track down that Book of Breathings and steal it. Meliodas Cursebreaker…and the Night Court’s thief.

“Just cool your heels, Gelda,” Arthur hummed, eyes a bit glazed as he no doubt imagined the treasures he might steal away from the Summer Court. “We’ll be fine without your swaggering and growling at everyone. Their High Lady owes Elizabeth a favor for saving her life Under-the-Mountain—and keeping her secrets.”

Gelda’s wings twitched, but Diane chimed in, “And the High Lady probably wants to figure out where we stand in regard to any upcoming conflict.”

Gelda’s wings settled again. She jerked her chin at me. “Meliodas, though. It’s one thing to have him here—even when everyone knows it. It’s another to bring him to a different court, and introduce him as a member of our own.”

The message it’d send to Zaneli—if my letter wasn’t already enough.

But Elizabeth was done. She inclined her head to Arthur and stalked for the open archway, shadows swimming in her wake. Gelda lurched a step, but Diane lifted a hand. “Leave it,” she murmured. Gelda glared, but obeyed.

I took that as a chance to follow after Elizabeth, the warm darkness inside the House of Wind blinding me after so long in the brilliant sunlight. My Fae eyes adjusted swiftly, but for the first few steps down the narrow hallway, I trailed after Elizabeth on memory alone.

“Any more traps I should know about before we go tomorrow?” I called to her back.

Elizabeth looked over her shoulder, pausing on atop the stair landing. “Here I was, thinking your notes the other night meant all was forgiven.” She sighed, but there was an air of _drama_ to it, amusement glimmering in those blue eyes.

I took in that half-grin, those magnificent eyes glimmering with all the tension those notes had crackled with, the slim and deadly physique I might have avoided looking at for the past four days, and halted a healthy distance away. “One would think a High Lady would have more important things to do than pass notes back and forth at night.”

“Oh, of _course,_ Meliodas,” she purred. “But I find myself unable to resist the temptation—it’s my only vice, some would say.” The light in her eyes twinkled mischievously. “The same way you can’t resist watching me whenever we’re out. So _territorial_.”

My mouth went dry before filling with poison, ready to snap, snarl, deny. But flirting with her, fighting with her… It was easy. Fun.

Maybe I deserved both of those things.

So I closed the distance between us, smoothly breezed past her, and drawled, “ _You_ haven’t been able to keep away from me since Calanmai, it seems.” Yes, that was right—we’d met as strangers, enemies, once upon a Fire-Night, and I’d taken one look at her, heard that lilting voice…and thought (almost traitorously) that she was the most beautiful person I’d ever laid eyes on.

Something rippled through her eyes that I couldn’t place at the memory, but she flicked my nose—hard enough that I hissed and batted her hand away.

“I can’t wait to see what that sharp tongue of yours can do at the Summer Court,” she breathed, gaze fixed on my mouth—and vanished into shadow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, we go to the Summer Court--and we meet some OCs, Isolde and Apollo! Can't wait for you guys to read it ;)
> 
> Liked it? Please drop me a comment or a kudos!


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The High Lady, Second, and Emissary of the Night Court come to the Summer Court. It goes about as well as can be expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeeee, we finally get to explore more of Britannia! I'm excited. Are you excited? Let's get right into it!

In the end, only Arthur and I joined Elizabeth, Gelda having failed to sway her High Lady, King still off overseeing his network of spies and investigating the human realm, and Diane tasked with guarding Liones. Elizabeth would winnow us directly into Beloe, the castle-city of the Summer Court—and there we would stay, for however long it took me to detect and then steal the first half of the Book of Breathings.

As Elizabeth’s newest pet, I would be granted tours of the city and the High Lady’s personal residence. If we were lucky, none of them would realized that her little leashed lapdog was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It was, in all honesty, a very, very good disguise.

Elizabeth and Arthur stood in the town house foyer the next day, the rich morning sunlight streaming through the window and pooling on the ornate carpet. Arthur wore his usual shades of rich, glimmering red, his loose pants cut to just beneath his navel, the billowing top cropped just enough to reveal he barest slice of golden skin along his midriff. Alluring as a calm sea in a golden sunset.

Elizabeth was in head-to-toe black, her gown accented with silver thread, heels leaving sparks of shadow in her wake—no wings. The cool, cultured female I’d first met oh-so long ago on a green plain lit by bonfires. Her favorite mask.

For my own, I’d selected a flowing tunic of palest blue and dark pants, black sandals replacing the usual slippers and boots. Night-blooming silver flowers embroidered into the rich silk, twining around the hems and my waist. Silver dusted the black leather of my shoes, an ethereal glimmer rippling through them with every movement. The perfect clothes to combat the warmth of the Summer Court—and to mark me as a member of the Night Court.

My footsteps clacked as I descended the last two stairs into the foyer. Elizabeth surveyed me with a long, unreadable sweep from my silver-dusted feet to my hair, pulled back into a ponytail by the scrap of black silk she’d offered me once upon a time. Something in those blue eyes flashed, dark and dangerous, and I braced for her wicked smile—

Elizabeth simply said, “Good. Let’s go.”

My mouth popped open, but Arthur grinned at me, violet eyes sparking with feline amusement. “She’s pissy this morning.”

“Why?” I asked, watching Arthur take Elizabeth’s hand, her long, delicate fingers dwarfed by his. She held the other out to me.

“Because,” Elizabeth answered before Arthur could open his mouth, resulting in a halfhearted glare from her Second, “I stayed out late with Gelda and King, and they took me for all I was worth in cards.”

“Sore loser?” I gripped her hand. Her calluses scraped against my own—the only reminder of the trained warrior beneath the clothes and veneer, the soldier that lay in wait beneath the mask of a female dangerous only to the mind.

“I am when my siblings tag-team me,” she grumbled. She offered no warning before we vanished on a midnight wind, and then—

Then I was staring at the glaring sun off a turquoise sea, just as I was trying to adjust my body around the dry, suffocating heat, even with the cooling breeze off the water. I blinked a few times to adjust my eyes to the light—and that was as much reaction as I let myself show as I yanked my hand from Elizabeth’s grip.

We seemed to be standing on a landing platform at the base of a tan stone palace, the building itself perched atop a mountain-island in the heart of a half-moon bay. The city, spread around and below us, toward that sparkling sea—the buildings all from that stone, or glimmering white material that might have been coral or pearl. Gulls flapped over the many turrets and spires, nothing on the breeze with them but salty air and the clatter of the city below.

Various bridges connected the bustling island to the larger landmass that circled it on three sides, one of them currently raising itself so a many-masted ship could cruise through. Indeed, there were more ships than I could count—some merchant vessels, some fishing ones, and some, it seemed, ferrying people from the island-city to the mainland, whose sloping shores were crammed full of more buildings, more people.

This place… my mother would love this place.

A half-dozen people stood before us, framed by a pair of sea-glass doors that opened into a palace itself. On our little balcony, there was no option to escape—no path out but winnowing away…or going through those doors. Or, I supposed, the plunge awaiting us to the red roofs of the fine houses a hundred feet below.

Now that I thought about it, the plunge meant nothing to one like Elizabeth—one with wings.

“Welcome to Beloe,” said the tall, elegant female in the center of the group.

And I knew her— _remembered_ her.

Not _from memory._ I’d already remembered that the lovely High Lady of Summer had rich brown skin, hair that shifted through every color the sea could take with every passing second, and eyes of crushing, sunset gold. I’d already remember she’d been forced to watch as her courtier’s mind was invaded and then his life snuffed out by Elizabeth Under-the-Mountain—as Elizabeth lied to Mael about what she’d learned, and spared both courtier and High Lady from a fate perhaps worse than death. I’d reminded myself of all the grudges they might hold, the capacity for betrayal, calculated what could be done to prevent it. But that was not how I remembered her now.

No—I remembered the High Lady of Summer in a way I couldn’t quite explain, like some fragment of me knew it had come from her, from here, in this land of eternal summertime. Like some piece of me said, _I remember, I remember, I remember. We are one and the same, you and I._

Elizabeth merely drawled, “Good to see you again, Isolde.”

The five other people behind the High Lady of Summer swapped frowns of varying severity. Like their lady, their skin was dark, their hair varying shades of blue—though unlike their High Lady, the colors did not shift and sway and change with every passing moment. Their eyes, however, were of every color. And they now shifted between me and Arthur, watching, assessing, _analyzing._

Elizabeth braced one deceptively delicate hand on her hip and gestured with the other to Arthur. “Arthur, I think you know. Though you haven’t met him since your…promotion.” Cool, calculating grace, edged with steel.

Isolde gave Arthur the briefest of nods. “Welcome back to the city, lord.”

Arthur didn’t nod, or bow, or even curtsy. He looked over Isolde, tall and muscled, her clothes of sea green and blue and gold as her straight, chin-length hair rippled sky-blue and silver, and purred, “At least you’re far more beautiful than your cousin. She was _such_ an eyesore, and a bore besides.” A male behind Isolde outright glared. Arthur’s lips stretched wide. “Condolences, of course,” he added with as much sincerity as a snake.

Wicked, cruel—that’s what Arthur and Elizabeth were…what _I_ was to be to these people.

Elizabeth gestured to me. “I don’t believe you two were ever formally introduced Under-the-Mountain. Isolde, Meliodas. Meliodas, Isolde.” No titles here—either to unnerve them or because Elizabeth found them a waste of breath. Possibly both, knowing her.

Isolde’s eyes—such stunning, fiery gold—fixed on me.

_I remember you, I remember you, I remember you._

The High Lady did not smile.

I kept my face neutral, vaguely bored.

Her gaze drifted to my chest, the bare skin revealed by the sweeping vee of my shirt, as though she could see where that spark of life, her power had gone.

Elizabeth followed that gaze and laughed, a low, rumbling purr like thunder rising on the horizon. “His chest _is_ rather spectacular, isn’t it? Firm as a wall of stone.”

I fought the urge to scowl, and instead slid my attention to her as indolently as she’d looked at me, at the others. “Here I was, thinking you had a fascination with my mouth.”

Delighted surprise lit Elizabeth’s eyes, there and gone in a heartbeat. We both looked back to our hosts, still stone-faced and stiff-backed.

Isolde seemed to weigh the air between my companions and me, then said carefully, “You have a tale to tell, it seems.”

“We have many tales to tell,” Elizabeth replied, jerking her chin to the sea-glass doors behind them. “So why not get comfortable, _High Lady?”_

The male a half-step behind Isolde inched closer, sharp blue eyes glimmering. “We have refreshments prepared.”

Isolde seemed to remember him and placed a gentle hand on his slim shoulder. “Apollo—Prince of Beloe.”

The ruler of her capital—or husband? There was no ring on either of their fingers, and I didn’t recognize him from Under-the-Mountain. His long, white-blue hair blew across his pretty face in the briny breeze, and I didn’t mistake the light in his blue eyes for anything but razor-sharp cunning. “A pleasure,” he murmured huskily to me. “And an honor, to host the Cursebreaker in our humble hall.”

My breakfast turned to lead in my gut, but I didn’t let him see what the groveling did to me, let him realize it was ammunition. Instead I gave him my best imitation of Elizabeth’s uncaring shrug. “The honor’s all mine, prince.”

The others were hastily introduced: three advisors who oversaw the city, the court, and the trade. And then a lean, lovely female named Guinevere, Apollo’s younger sister, captain of Isolde’s guard, and Princess of Beloe. Her attention was fixed wholly on Arthur—as if she knew where the biggest threat lay. And would be happy to kill him, if given the chance.

In the brief time I’d known him, Arthur had never looked more delighted.

We were led into a palace crafted of shell-flecked walkways and walls, countless windows looking out to the bay and mainland or the open sea beyond. Chandeliers of mother-of-pearl and sea glass swayed on the warm breeze over gurgling streams and fountains of fresh water. High Fae—courtiers and servants alike—hurried across and around them, most dark-skinned and clad in loose, light clothing, all far too preoccupied with their own matters to take note or interest in our presence. No lesser faeries crossed our path—not one.

I kept a step behind Elizabeth as she walked at Isolde’s side, that mighty power of hers leashed and dimmed, the others following behind us. Arthur remained within reach, and I wondered if he was also to be my bodyguard of a sort. Isolde and Elizabeth had been talking lightly, both already sounding bored, of the approaching Nynsar—of the native flowers that both courts would display for the minor, brief holiday.

Calanmai—Fire Night, the holiday that signified the start of spring—wouldn’t be too long after that.

My stomach twisted. If Zaneli was intent on upholding the tradition of the Rite, if I was no longer with her… I didn’t let myself get that far down the road. It wouldn’t be fair. To me—or to her.

“We have four main cities in my court,” Isolde explained to me after a moment of hushed conversation, looking over her muscled shoulder. “We spend the last month of winter and first spring months in Beloe—it’s at its finest this time of year.”

Indeed, I supposed with that endless summer, there was no limit to how one might enjoy one’s time. In the country, by the sea, in a city under the stars… I nodded. “It’s very beautiful.”

Isolde stared at me long enough that Elizabeth said, “The repairs have been going well, I take it.”

That hauled Isolde’s attention back. “Mostly. There remains much to be done. The back half of the castle is a wreck. But, as you can see, we’ve finished most of the inside. We focused on our city first—and those repairs remain ongoing.”

Mael had sacked the city? Elizabeth hummed low in her throat. “I hope no valuables were lost during its occupation.”

“Not the most important things, thank the Mother,” Isolde replied with a shake of her head, hair rippling indigo and cobalt. Behind me, Apollo tensed. The three advisers peeled off to attend to other duties, murmuring farewell—with wary looks in Isolde’s direction. As if this might very well be the first time she’d needed to play host and _they_ were watching their High Lady’s every move.

She gave them a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and said nothing more as she led us into a vaulted room of white oak and green glass—overlooking the mouth of the bay and the sea that stretched on forever.

I had never seen water so vibrant. Green and cobalt and midnight. And for a heartbeat, a palette of paint flashed in my mind, along with the blue and yellow and white and black I might need to paint it…

“This is my favorite view,” Isolde said beside me, and I realized I’d gone to the wide windows while the others had seated themselves around the mother-of-pearl table. A handful of servants were heaping fruits, leafy greens, and steamed shellfish onto their plates.

“You must be very proud,” I said, “to have such stunning lands.”

Isolde’s eyes—so like the sun-gilded sands touched by the ocean beyond us—slid to me. “How do they compare to the ones you have seen?” Such a carefully crafted question.

My voice was dull as I answered, “Everything in Britannia is lovely when compared to the mortal realm.”

“And is being immortal lovelier than being human?”

I could feel everyone’s attention on us, even as Elizabeth engaged Apollo and Guinevere in bland, edged discussion about the status of their fish markets. So I looked the High Lady of Summer up and down, as she had examined me, brazenly and without a shred of politeness, and then purred, “You tell me.”

Isolde’s eyes crinkled. “You are a pearl. Though I knew that the day you threw that bone at Mael and splattered mud on his favorite armor.”

I shut out the memories, the dying screech of the Wyrm, the blind terror of that first trial.

What did she make of that tug between us—did she realize it was her own power, or think it was a bond of its own, some sort of strange allure?

And if I had to steal from her…perhaps that meant getting closer. “I do not remember you being quite so beautiful Under-the-Mountain. The sunlight and sea suit you.”

A lesser female might have preened, but Isolde knew better—knew that I had once been with Zaneli, and was now with Elizabeth, and had now been brought here. Perhaps she thought me no better than Ludociel. The thought rankled, but I managed to keep the mask steady. “How, exactly, do you fit within Elizabeth’s court?”

A direct question, after such roundabout ones—to no doubt get me on uneven footing.

It almost worked—I nearly admitted, _“I don’t know,”_ but Elizabeth answered from the table without glancing up from her shellfish, as if she’d heard every word, “Meliodas is a member of my Inner Circle, and my Emissary to the Mortal Lands.”

Apollo, seated beside her, asked, false innocence glimmering in those blue eyes, “Do you have much contact with the mortal realm?”

I took that as an invitation to sit—and get away from the too-heavy stare of Isolde. A seat had been left open for me at Arthur’s side, across from Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s Second winked at me, the motion so brief it barely disturbed his perpetually amused mask, before returning his attention to the wine he could not drink.

The High Lady of the Night Court sniffed at her wine—white, sparkling—and I wondered if she was trying to piss them off by implying they’d poisoned it as she sighed and said, “I prefer to be prepared for every potential situation. And, given that Erebus seems set on making themselves a thorn in our sides once again, striking up a conversation with the humans might be in our best interest.”

Guinevere drew her focus away from Arthur long enough to growl, “So it’s been confirmed, then? Erebus is readying for war?”

“They’re done readying,” Elizabeth drawled, at last sipping from her wine. Arthur didn’t touch his plate, though he pushed things around as he always did. I wondered what—who—he’d eat while here. Guinevere seemed like a good guess, at the rate their standoff was going. “War is imminent.”

“Yes, you mentioned that in your letter,” Isolde said, claiming the seat at the head of the table between Elizabeth and Arthur. A bold move, to situate herself between two such powerful beings. Arrogance—or an attempt at friendship? Isolde’s golden gaze again drifted to me before focusing on Elizabeth. “And you know that against Erebus, we will fight. We lost enough good people Under-the-Mountain. I have no interest in being slaves again. But if you are here to ask me to fight in another war, Elizabeth—”

“That is not a possibility,” Elizabeth cut in smoothly, “and had not even entered my mind.”

My glimmer of confusion must have shown, because Apollo crooned to me, “High Ladies have gone to war for less, you know. Doing it over such an _unusual_ male would be nothing unexpected.”

Which was likely why they had accepted this invitation, favor or no. To feel us out.

If—if Zaneli went to war to get me back...no. No, that wouldn’t be an option. Couldn’t be.

I’d written to her, told her to stay away. And she wasn’t foolish enough to start a war she could not win. Not when she wouldn’t be fighting other High Fae, but Illyrian warriors, led by Gelda and King, the most powerful of them all. Not when the likes of Arthur and Diane would be waiting for them. It would be slaughter.

So I said, bored and flat and dull, “Try not to look too excited, prince. The High Lady of Spring has no plans to go to war with the Night Court.”

“And are you in contact with Zaneli, then?” A saccharine smile.

My next words were quiet, slow, and I decided I did not mine taking them for all they were worth, not one gods-damned bit. “There are things that are public knowledge and things that are not. My relationship with her is well known. Its current standing, however, is none of your concern. Or anyone else’s. But I do know Zaneli, and I know that there will be no internal war between courts—at least not over me, or _my_ decisions.”

“What a relief, then,” Apollo said, sipping from her white wine before cracking a large crab claw, pink and white and orange. “To know that we are not harboring a stolen groom—and that we need not bother returning him to his master, as the law demands. And as any wise person might do, to keep trouble from their doorstep.”

Arthur had gone utterly, utterly still., that faint smile frozen in place. The gold in those ever-shifting, unholy eyes began to burn—a deadly warning.

I nudged him beneath the table, tried to convince him as best I could to stand down with that gesture. “I left of my own free will,” I said, my voice as clear as a bell and sharp as a blade. “And no one is my master.”

Apollo shrugged. “Think that all you want, lord, but the law is the law. You are—were her groom. Swearing fealty to another High Lady does not change that, which means it’s a _very_ good thing she respects your decisions. Otherwise, all it would take would be one letter from her to Isolde, requesting your return, and we would have to obey. Or risk war ourselves.”

Elizabeth sighed again. “You were always a joy, Apollo.”

Guinevere narrowed her eyes. “Careful, High Lady. My brother speaks the truth.”

Isolde laid a hand on the pale table. “Elizabeth is our guest, as are our courtiers. We will treat them, _Apollo,_ as we treat people who saved our necks when all it would have taken was one word from them for us to be very, very dead.”

Isolde studied me and Elizabeth—whose face was gloriously disinterested. The High Lady of Summer shook her head, strands of ever-shifting hair that now glimmered sea green bouncing, and said to Elizabeth, “We have much more to discuss later, you and I. Tonight, I’m throwing a party for you all on my pleasure barge in the bay. After that, you’re free to roam in this city wherever you wish.” She hesitated, before glancing at Apollo. “You will forgive its prince if he is protective of his people. Rebuilding these months has been long and hard. We do not wish to do it again anytime soon.”

Apollo’s eyes grew dark, haunted.

“Apollo made many sacrifices on behalf of his people,” Isolde offered gently—to me. “Do not take his caution personally.”

“We _all_ made sacrifices,” Elizabeth said, the icy boredom now shifting into something razor-sharp and blinding. “And you now sit at this table with your family because of the ones Meliodas made. So you will forgive _me,_ Isolde dearest, if I tell your prince that if he sends word to Zaneli, or if any of your people try to bring him to her, their lives will be forfeit.”

Even the sea breeze died.

“Do not threaten me in my own home, Elizabeth,” Isolde warned, her voice as soft and deadly as an assassin’s kiss. “My gratitude only goes so far.”

“It’s not a threat,” Elizabeth countered, the crab claws on her plate cracking open beneath invisible hands. “It’s a promise.”

They all looked at me, waiting for any response. To see how the High Lady’s newest and most dangerous pet would react to his threatened safety.

I merely smiled, a catlike grin that would’ve made Diane proud, and lifted my glass of wine, looking them each in the eye. My gaze held Isolde’s of glowing, sea-kissed gold as I drawled, “No wonder immortality never gets dull.”

Isolde chuckled—and I wondered if her loosed breath was one of profound relief.

And through that bond between us, I felt Elizabeth’s flicker of approval.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you guys think of Isolde and Apollo? Like the story? Drop me a kudos or a comment! And expect the next chapter to be out soon!
> 
> [Isolde is an Arthurian name, but I'm not sure what it means or who she was in legend. Similarly, Beloe is a city in Arthurian mythos]


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Summer Court and its High Lady are as intriguing as they are lovely. Meliodas, however, has other things on his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO CHAPTERS IN A DAY!!! The Summer Court is soooo much fun to write. Enjoy!
> 
> Also, a very kind reader and friend drew [something absolutely stunning](https://lemaskadra.tumblr.com/post/182203365881/illustration-for-my-dear-friend) for this fic, so please do check it out!

We were given a suite of connecting rooms, all centered on a large, lavish lounge that was open to the sea and city below. My bedroom was shimmering seafoam and softest blue with pops of gold—like the gilded clamshell atop my pale wood dresser. I had just set it down when the white door behind me open and Elizabeth slid in.

She leaned against the door once she shut it, the plunging vee of her dress revealing the upper whorls of the Illyrian tattoos spanning her chest. “The problem, I’ve realized, will be that I like Isolde,” she declared by way of greeting. “Hell, I even like Apollo. Guinevere, I could do without, but I bet a few weeks with Gelda and King and she’d be as thick as thieves with them and I’d have to learn to like her. Or she’d be wrapped around Arthur’s finger, and I’d have to leave her alone entirely or risk his wrath.”

“And?” I took up a spot against the dresser, where clothes that I had not packed but were clearly of Night Court origin had already been waiting for me. The space of the room—the large bed, the windows, the sunlight—filled the silence between us.

“And,” Elizabeth continued, “I want you to find a way to do what you have to do without making enemies of them.”

“So you’re telling me don’t get caught.”

A nod. Then, “Do you like that Isolde can’t stop looking at you?” No jealousy, no irritation in the words, just bland curiosity. “I can’t tell if it’s because she wants you, or because she knows you have her power and wants to see how much.”

“Can’t it be both?”

“Of course. But having a High Lady lusting after you is a dangerous game.”

“First you taunt me with Gelda, now Isolde? I thought you were more creative than that, High Lady.”

Elizabeth prowled closer, and I steadied myself for that sea-and-thunderstorm scent, the warmth of the darkness that flowed off her like living silk, the impact of that limitless power. She braced a hand on either side of me, gripping the dresser. I refused to shrink away. “You have one task here, Meliodas. One task that no one can know about. So do anything you have to in order to accomplish it, but _get the Book._ And do not get caught.”

I wasn’t some simpering fool, some tittering courtier she’d brought in only as a distraction. I knew the risks. And that infuriating _tone,_ the ever-so-smug _look_ she always gave me… _“Anything?”_ Her brows rose. I let my lips twitch up into a dark smirk to rival her own— _hook. Line. Sinker._ “If I fucked her for it, what would you do?”

The incandescent starlight, almost invisible in the daylight, flared bright in those blue, blue eyes, her gaze dropping to my mouth. The wooden dresser groaned beneath her ink-patterned hands. “You say such _atrocious_ things, Meliodas darling.” I waited, my heart beating an uneven, traitorous rhythm against my chest. She held my gaze, her smile darker, wilder, more savage than I’d ever seen it. “You are always free to do what you want, with whomever you want. So if you want her, go ahead.”

“Maybe I will.” Though part of me whispered _liar, liar, liar_ at the words.

“Fine.” Her silky-soft exhale brushed across my cheeks.

“Fine,” I repeated, aware of every inch between us, the distance smaller and smaller, the challenge heightening with each second neither of us moved.

“Do not,” she breathed, her eyes burning like twin stars, like _Polaris_ come down to earth, “jeopardize this mission.”

“I know the cost.” The sheer power of her enveloped me, shaking that humming energy in my blood awake. Shaking _me_ awake.

The salt and the sea and the breeze tugged on me, sang to me. _One of us, one of us, one of us._

And as if Elizabeth heard them, too, she inclined her head toward the unlit candle on the dresser. “Light it.”

I debated arguing, but looked at the candle, summoning fire, summoning that hot anger she always managed to rile with such _infuriating_ ease—

The candle was knocked off the dresser by a violent splash of water, as if someone had chucked a bucketful at it.

I gaped at the water drenching the dresser, its dripping on the marble floor the only sound. Elizabeth, hands still braced on either side of me, laughed quietly. “Can’t you ever follow orders?”

But whatever it was—being here, close to Isolde and the heart of her power… I could feel that water answering me. Feel it coating the floor, feel the sea churning and idling in the bay, taste the salt on the breeze. I held Elizabeth’s gaze.

No one was my master—but I might be master of everything, if I wished. If I dared.

Like a strange rain, the water rose from the floor as I willed it to become like those stars Elizabeth had summoned in that blanket of darkness. I willed the droplets to separate until they hung around us, catching the light and sparkling like crystals on a chandelier, the elements themselves bending to my will, my desires, my _power._

Elizabeth broke my stare to study them, glimmering midnight-blue eyes glowing faintly as she took in the sight. “I suggest,” she murmured, “you not show Isolde that little trick in the bedroom.”

I sent each and every one of those diamond-bright droplets shooting for the High Lady’s face—too fast, too swiftly for even her to shield against. Some of them sprayed me as they ricocheted off her.

Both of us now soaking, Elizabeth gaped at me—then grinned, blinding and brilliant. “Good work,” she said, at last pushing off the dresser. She didn’t bother wiping away the water gleaming on her golden skin. “Keep practicing, darling.”

A suggestion, not an order, and almost a farewell. But before she could step away, I blurted out, “Will she—will she go to war? Over me?” The mere idea was horrifying.

She knew who I meant. The white-hot temper that had seethed across Elizabeth’s face moments before turned to dark, lethal calm. “I don’t know.”

“I—I would go back.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but I meant every single one. “If it came to that, Elizabeth. I’d go back rather than make you fight.” Fight and die—and for what? _Me?_

She braced a still-wet hand on her hip, the water soaking into the dark silks of her gown. “Would you _want_ to go back? Would going to war on your behalf make you love her again?” There was a strange, quiet darkness humming around the words, a bizarre static sapping the emotion from them. “Would that be a grand gesture to win you?”

I swallowed hard, the revulsion at the very idea of war making me _love_ her again. “I’m tired of death. I wouldn’t want to see anyone else die—least of all for me.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“No. I wouldn’t want to go back—but I would, to stop the fighting. Pain and killing wouldn’t win me.”

Elizabeth stared at me for a moment longer, her impossibly beautiful face unreadable, before she strode for the door. She stopped with her fingers on the sea urchin-shaped handle. “She locked you up because she knew,” she whispered, and I couldn’t tell if the words were directed to me…or to _herself._ “She locked you up because the bitch _knew_ what a treasure you are. That you are worth more than land or gold or jewels, than all the stars in the sky. She knew, and wanted to keep you all to herself.”

The words hit me, even as they soothed some jagged piece in my soul. “She did—does love me, Elizabeth.” Even if the strangling thorns of that love had torn away at my own until nothing was left but grief.

“The issue isn’t whether she loved you or not.” Those eyes, glowing like a night sky in hell, found mine again. “It’s how much. Too much. Love can be a poison, Meliodas darling. Even to the best of us.”

And then she was gone.

* * *

 

The bay was calm enough—perhaps willed to flatness by its lady and master—that the pleasure barge hardly rocked throughout the hours we dined and drank aboard it. Crafted of richest wood and gold, the enormous boat was amply sized for the hundred or so High Fae trying their best not to observe every movement Elizabeth, Arthur, and I made.

The main deck was full of low tables and couches for eating and relaxing, and on the upper level, beneath a canopy of tiles set with turquoise and mother-of-pearl, our long table had been set. Isolde was summer incarnate in sea-green and gold, bits of emerald shining at her buttons and fingers. A crown of sapphire and white-gold fashioned like cresting waves sat atop hair that matched the flat, calm seas we sailed on—so exquisite I often caught myself staring at it.

As I was now, when she turned to where I sat on her right and noticed my stare.

“You’d think with how skilled our jewelers are, they’d make a crown more comfortable to wear. This one digs horribly.” A pleasant enough attempt at conversation, when I’d stayed quiet throughout the first hour, instead watching the island-city, the mainland—casting a net of awareness, of blind power, toward it, to see if anything answered. If the Book slumbered somewhere out there.

Nothing had answered my silent call. So I figured it was as good a time as any as I said dully, “How did you keep it out of his hands?”

Saying Mael’s name here, amongst such happy, celebrating people, felt like inviting in a rain cloud.

Seated at her left, deep in conversation with Apollo, Elizabeth didn’t so much as look over at me. Indeed, she’d barely even spoken to me earlier this afternoon, forgoing her usual noting of whatever I chose to wear. Loathe though I was to say I _missed_ that appraising stare, I found it unusual given that even _I_ had been pleased with how I looked. My hair fell braided over my shoulder with strands of rose-gold and silver, my fitted sleeveless shirt a soft sunset orange, so similar from the pale purple I’d worn that morning. Elegant, soft, pretty. I hadn’t felt like those things in a long, long while. Hadn’t wanted to.

But here, as Emissary of the Night Court, being those things wouldn’t earn me a ticket to a lifetime of party planning. Here, I could be soft and lovely at sunset, and awaken with the dawn to slide into Illyrian fighting leathers.

Isolde said, “We managed to smuggle out most of our treasure when the territory fell. Idris—my predecessor—was my cousin. I served as princess of another city. So I got the order to hide the trove in the dead of night, fast as we could.”

Mael had killed Idris when she’d rebelled—and had executed her entire family from sheer spite. Isolde must have been one of the few surviving members, if the power passed to her.

“I didn’t know the Summer Court valued treasure so much,” I remarked. _More. More. Tell me more—everything you know._

Isolde huffed a laugh. “The earliest High Ladies certainly did. We protect our riches so fiercely in their honor more than from gold-lust.”

I said carefully, casually, “So is it gold and jewels you value, then?”

“Among other things.”

I sipped my wine to buy time while I figured out a way to ask without raising suspicions. But perhaps being direct about it…maybe that would actually _help_ in this situation. “Are outsiders allowed to see the collection? My father was a merchant until he died, and my mother took over the business after he passed. I spent most of my childhood in their offices, helping them with their goods. It would be interesting to compare mortal riches to those made by Fae hands.

Elizabeth kept talking to Apollo, not even a hint of approval or amusement running through our bond. Nothing at all.

Isolde cocked her head, the jewels in her crown glinting. “Of course. Tomorrow—after lunch, perhaps?”

She certainly wasn’t stupid, and she might have been aware of the game, but…the offer was genuine. I gave her an almost-genuine smile in return, nodding. My gaze drifted toward the crowd milling about on the deck below, the lantern-lit water beyond, even as I felt Isolde’s linger.

She said, “What was it like? The mortal world?” No judgment, just genuine curiosity.

I picked at the strawberry salad on my plate. “I only saw a very small slice of it. My mother was called the Princess of Merchants—but I was too young to be taken on her voyages to other parts of the mortal world. When I was eleven, she lost tour fortune on a shipment to Megadoza. We spent the next ten years in poverty, in a backwater village barely a day’s ride from the wall.” I shook my head at the memory, the cold and the hunger and the frustration. “I cannot speak for the entirety of the mortal world, but what I saw there was…hard. Brutal. Here, class lines are far more blurred, it seems. There, it’s defined entirely by money. Either you have it and you don’t share it, or you are left to starve and fight for your survival. My mother…she regained her wealth after I was taken to Britannia.” My heart tightened, then dropped into my stomach. “And the very people who had been content to let us starve were once again our friends. I would rather face every creature in Britannia than the monsters on the other side of the wall. Without magic, without power, money has become the only thing that matters.”

Isolde’s lips were pursed, but there was a thoughtful light in her golden eyes. “Would you spare them if war came?”

Such a dangerous, loaded question. I wouldn’t tell her what we were doing over the wall—not until Elizabeth had indicated we should.

“My brothers dwell with my mother on her estate. For them, I would fight. But for those sycophants and peacocks…I would not mind seeing their precious order disrupted.” Like the hate-mongering family of Estarossa’s betrothed.

Isolde murmured, her voice soft as seafoam, “There are some in Britannia who would think the same of the courts.”

“What—get rid of the High Ladies?”

“Perhaps. But mostly eliminate the inherent privileges of High Fae over the lesser faeries. Even the terms themselves imply a level of unfairness.” She huffed a laugh, but it seemed strangely bitter. “Maybe it is more like the human realm than you realize, not as blurred as it first appeared. In some courts, the lowest of High Fae servants has more rights than the wealthiest of the lesser faeries.”

I became aware, suddenly, that we were not the only people on the barge, at this table. And that we were surrounded by High Fae with animal-keen hearing. “Do you agree with them.”

Her expression was contemplative, slender fingers drumming a steady tattoo against the table. “I am a young High Lady—barely eighty years old.” So she’d been about thirty when Mael took over—truly young, especially when surrounded by a people whose lives spanned millennia. “Perhaps others might call me inexperienced or foolish, but I have seen those cruelties firsthand, and known many good lesser faeries who suffered for merely being born on the wrong side of power. Even within my own residences, my own court, the confines of tradition pressure me to enforce the rules of my predecessors: the lesser faeries are to neither be seen nor heard as they work. I would like to one day see a Britannia where they have a voice, both in my home and in the world beyond it.”

I scanned her for any deceit, manipulation. I found none.

Steal from her—I _would_ steal from her. But what if I simply _asked_ instead? Would she give it to me, or would the traditions of her ancestors run too deep?

“Tell me what that look means,” Isolde said, bracing her muscled arms on the gold tablecloth.

I met her eyes and grinned. “I’m thinking it would be very easy to love you. And easier to call you my friend.”

She smiled at me—broad and without restraint. “I would not object to either.”

Easy—very easy to fall in love with a kind, considerate female.

But I glanced over at Apollo, who had nearly drawn Elizabeth into his lap. And Elizabeth was smiling like a cat, one finger tracing circles on the back of his hand while he bit his lip and beamed down at her. I faced Isolde, my brows high in silent question.

She made a face and shook her head.

I hoped to whatever gods might still be listening that they went to his room. Because if I had to listen to Elizabeth bed him… I didn’t let myself finish the thought.

Isolde mused, “It has been many years since I saw him look like that.”

My cheeks heated—shame. Shame for what? Wanting to throttle her for absolutely no good reason? I had never been the object of those affections, not from her, anyway. Elizabeth teased and taunted, sure, but she never… _seduced_ me, with those long, intent stares, those half smiles that were pure Illyrian arrogance. There was no reason for me to feel this way.

I supposed I’d been granted that gift once, to be the object of one’s affections—and had used it up and fought for it and broken it beyond repair. And I supposed that Elizabeth, after all she’d sacrificed, everything she’d given… She deserved it as much as Apollo.

Even if…even if for a moment, _I_ wanted it.

I _wanted_ to feel like that again.

And…I was lonely.

I had been lonely, I realized, for a very, very long time.

Elizabeth leaned in to hear something Apollo was saying, his lips brushing her ear, his hand now entwining with hers.

And it wasn’t sorrow, or despair, or terror that hit me, but… _unhappiness._ Such bleak, sharp unhappiness that I found myself rising to my feet.

Elizabeth’s eyes shifted toward me, at last remembering I existed, and there was nothing on her face—no hint that she felt any of what I did through our bond. I didn’t care if I had no shield, if my thoughts were wide open and she read them like a book. She didn’t seem to care, either. She went right back to giggling at whatever Apollo was telling her, sliding closer.

Isolde had risen to her feet, scanning me and Elizabeth.

I was unhappy—not just broken, but _unhappy._

An emotion, I realized. It was an emotion, rather than the unending emptiness or survival-driven terror, something more than brief flashes of annoyance or spite. Something deep and true and _real_ in its pain.

“I need some fresh air,” I muttered, even though we were in the open. But with the golden lights, the people up and down the table… I needed to find a spot on this barge where I could be alone, just for a moment, mission or no.

“Would you like me to join you?”

I looked at the High Lady of Summer, the open concern on her face, the sweet warmth she radiated, the quiet strength there. I hadn’t lied. It would be easy, so devastatingly easy to fall in love with a female like her. But I wasn’t entirely sure that, despite the hardships she’d encountered Under-the-Mountain, Isolde could understand the darkness and cold that might always be in me. Not only from Mael, but from years spent being hungry, and desperate.

That I might always be a little bit vicious or restless. That I might crave peace, but never a cage of comfort.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I said, and heading for the sweeping staircase that led down onto the stern of the ship—brightly lit, but quieter than the main areas at the prow. Elizabeth didn’t so much as look in my direction as I walked away. Good riddance.

I was halfway down the wood steps when I spotted Arthur and Guinevere—both leaning against adjacent pillars, both drinking wine, both ignoring each other. Even as they spoke to no one else.

Perhaps that was another reason why he’d come—to distract Isolde’s watchdog.

I reached the main deck, found a spot by the wooden railing that was a bit more shadowed than the rest, and leaned against it. Magic propelled the boat—no oars, no sails. So we moved through the bay, silent and smooth, hardly a ripple in our wake.

I didn’t realize I’d been waiting for her until the barge docked at the base of the island-city, and I’d somehow spent the entire final hour alone.

When I filed onto land with the rest of the crowd, Arthur, Guinevere, and Isolde were waiting for me at the docks, all a bit stiff-backed.

Elizabeth and Apollo were nowhere to be seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I've hit thirty chapters! WOO! 
> 
> Liked it? Curious about what happens next? Drop me a kudos or a comment! The next chapter's gonna be fun~


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meliodas isn't the only jealous one (or the only one in denial), Isolde makes an offer, and Arthur continues his strange game of cat-and-mouse with the captain of Isolde's guard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've got a long one for you guys today--and a super important turning point for Elizabeth and Meliodas at the end! Are you excited? I'm excited. Let's get right into it!

Mercifully, there was no sound from her closed bedroom. And no sounds came out of it during that night, when I jolted awake from a nightmare of being turned over a spit, and couldn’t remember where I was.

Moonlight danced on the shining sea beyond my open windows, so different from the churning waters I glimpsed from the cliffs of Liones or the silvery water of the Vanya, and there was silence—such silence.

A weapon. I was a weapon to find that book, to stop the king from breaking the wall, to stop whatever he had planned for Vivian and the war that might destroy my world. That might very well destroy this place—and with it, a High Lady who might very well overturn the order of things.

For a heartbeat, I missed Liones, missed the lights and the music and Elysium. I missed the cozy warmth of the town house to welcome me in from the crisp winter, missed…what it had been like to be a part of their little unit. Their little _family._

Maybe wrapping her wings around me, writing me notes, had been Elizabeth’s way of ensuring her weapon didn’t break beyond repair. And that was fine—fair enough. We owed each other nothing beyond our promises to work and fight together.

She could still be my friend. Companion—whatever this thing was between us. Her taking someone to her bed didn’t change those things.

It’d just been a relief to think that, for a moment, she might have been as lonely as me.

* * *

 

I didn’t have the nerve to come out of my room for breakfast, to see if Elizabeth had returned. To see who she came to breakfast with.

I had nothing else to do, I told myself as I lay in bed, until my lunchtime visit with Isolde. So I stayed there until the servants came in, apologized for disturbing me, and started to leave. I stopped them, saying I’d bathe while they cleaned the room. They were polite—if nervous—and merely nodded as I did as I’d claimed.

I took my time in the bath. And behind the shelter of the locked door, I tested that kernel of Isolde’s power, first making the water rise from the tub, then shaping little animals and creatures out of it.

It was about as close to transformation as I’d let myself go. Contemplating how I might give myself animalistic features only made me shaky, sick. I could ignore it, ignore that occasional scrape of claws and fangs in my blood for a while yet.

Like the night before, Vervada walked through the walls from wherever s _he_ was staying in the palace, and dressed me, somehow attuned to when I’d be ready. Risling, she told me, laughter in her voice, had drawn the short stick and was seeing the Arthur. I didn’t have the nerve to ask about Elizabeth, either.

Vervada selected seafoam green accented with rose gold, braiding my hair into a thick, loose plait glimmering with bits of pearl. Whether Vervada knew why I was there, what I’d be doing, she didn’t say. But she took extra care of my face, brightening my lips with raspberry pink, dusting my cheeks with the faintest blush. I might have looked innocent, charming—were it not for my green eyes, hollower than they’d been last night, when I’d admired myself in the mirror.

I’d seen enough of the palace to navigate to where Isolde had said to meet before we bid good night. The main hall was situated on a level about halfway up—the perfect meeting place for those who dwelled in the spires above and those who worked unseen and unheard below.

This level held all the various council rooms, ballrooms, dining rooms, and whatever other chambers might be needed for visitors, events, gatherings. Access to the residential levels from which I’d come was guarded by four soldiers at each stairwell—all of whom watched me carefully as I waited against a seashell pillar for their High Lady. I wondered if she could sense that I’d been toying with her power, that the piece of her she’d yielded was now here and answering to me.

Isolde emerged from one of the adjacent rooms as the clock struck two—followed by my own companions.

Elizabeth’s gaze swept over me, noting the clothes at were obviously in honor of my host and her people. Noting how I did not meet her eyes, or Apollo’s, as I looked solely at Isolde and Arthur beside her—Guinevere now striding off to the soldiers at the stairs—and gave them both a bland, close-lipped smile.

“You’re looking well today,” Isolde greeted, inclining her head.

Vervada, it seemed, was a spectacularly good spy. Isolde’s pewter gown was accented with the same shade of seafoam green as my clothes. We might as well have been a matching set. I supposed with my golden hair and fair skin, I was the sun to her sea, so to speak.

I could feel Elizabeth still assessing me.

I shut her out. Maybe I’d send a water-dog barking after her later—let it bite her in the ass.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” I drawled to Arthur.

He shrugged his broad shoulders, clad in wine-red today. “We were finishing up a rather lively debate about armadas and who might be in charge of a unified front. Did you know,” he added, those strange eyes twinkling, “that before they became so _big_ and _powerful,_ Isolde and darling Guinevere led Idris’s fleet?”

Guinevere, several feet away, stiffened, but did not turn.

I met Isolde’s eyes, tilting my head. “You didn’t mention that you were a sailor.” It was an effort to sound intrigued, like I had nothing at all bothering me.

Isolde rubbed her neck, looking remarkably sheepish. “I had planned to tell you during our tour.” She held out an arm. “Shall we, Lord Meliodas?”

Not one word—I had not uttered one word to Elizabeth. And I wasn’t about to start as I dipped my head to Isolde and looped my arm through hers, chirping, “See you later,” to none of them in particular.

Something brushed against my mental shield, a rumble of something dark—powerful. Perhaps a warning to be careful.

Though it felt an awful lot like the dark, flickering emotion that had haunted me—so much like it that I stepped a bit closer to Isolde. And then I gave the High Lady of Summer a pretty, mindless smile that I had not given to _anyone_ in a long, long time.

That brush of emotion went silent on the other end of my shields.

Good.

* * *

 

Isolde brought me to a hall of jewels and treasure so vast that I gawked for a good minute. A minute I used to scan the shelves for any twinkle of feeling—anything that _felt_ like the female at my side, like the power I’d summoned in the bathtub that morning.

“And this is—this is just _one_ of the troves?” The room had been carved deep beneath the castle, behind a heavy lead door that had only opened when Isolde placed her hand on it. I didn’t dare get close enough to the lock to see if it might work under my touch— _her_ feigned signature.

A fox in a chicken coop. That’s what I was.

Isolde chuckled. “My ancestors were greedy bastards.”

I shook my head in amazement, striding to the shelves built into the wall. Solid stone—no way to break in, unless I tunneled through the mountain itself. Or if someone winnowed me, though there were most likely wards similar to those on the town house and the House of Wind.

Boxes overflowed with jewels and pearls and uncut gems, gold heaped in trunks so high it spilled onto the cobblestone floor. Suits of ornate armor stood guard against one wall, dresses woven of cobwebs and starlight leaned against another. There were swords, daggers, weapons of every sort. But no books. Not one.

“Do you know the history behind each piece?”

“Some,” she answered, gaze roving over her vault. “I haven’t had much time to learn about it all.”

Good—maybe she wouldn’t know about the Book, wouldn’t miss it. I turned in a circle, drinking it all in. “What’s the most valuable thing in here?”

“Thinking of stealing?”

I choked on a laugh. “Wouldn’t asking that question make me a lousy thief?”

Lying, two-faced wretch—that’s what asking _that_ question made me.

Isolde studied me. “I’d say I’m looking at the most valuable thing in here.

I didn’t fake the blush that crept across my face. “You’re—very kind.”

Her smile was soft. As if her position had not yet broken the kindness, the compassion, the trust in her. I hoped it never did. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s the most valuable thing. These are all priceless heirlooms of my house.”

I walked up to a shelf, scanning its contents. A necklace of rubies was displayed on a velvet pillow, each of them the size of a robin’s egg. It’d take a tremendous person to wear that necklace, to dominate the gems and not the other way around.

On another shelf, a necklace of pearls. Then sapphires.

An on another…a necklace of black diamonds.

Each of the dark stones was a mystery—and an answer. Each of them slumbered.

Isolde came up behind me, peering over my shoulder at what had snagged my interest. Her gaze drifted to my face. “Take it.”

“What?” I whirled to her.

She rubbed the back of her neck, suddenly shy. “As a thank-you. For Under-the-Mountain.”

_Ask it now—ask her for the Book instead._

“You’re very kind, Isolde.” I swallowed hard. “But if you wish to reward me, to stop war…” _Trust in her. Trust someone, for once—it won’t hurt your chances simply to try._ “Then I humbly request your half of the Book of Breathings.”

Something flared in those golden eyes, and she tilted her head, brow furrowing. “The…Book of Breathings? I’m sorry, Meliodas, but I’ve never heard of such a thing—”

 _Lie._ I couldn’t help raising my eyebrow at it, and she sighed, shaking her head. “The Book…the Book is my responsibility, mine to protect. And as much as we—as _I_ owe to you—I cannot simply hand it over.” Golden eyes blinked at me. “Is this a request of the Night Court, or of _you,_ Cursebreaker?”

“Mine, and mine alone.”

“And why—”

“I can’t answer that.” As much as I wished I could, I’d already given away too much. Any more would require a much deeper bond of trust, and as kind as she was, she was still a High Lady.

Indeed, regret flickered in her gaze as she bowed her head. “Then I’m sure you understand that I cannot give it to you.” Because trust went both ways, and without giving her mine, she could not give me hers. Fair—fair, but infuriating. She pulled the box of the necklace from its resting spot and shut the lid before handing it to me. “But this—this, I can give you.” She smiled, though it was a little sad. “You were the first person who didn’t laugh at my idea to break down class barriers. Even Apollo snickered when I told him. If you won’t accept the necklace as payment for saving us, then take it for that.”

“It’s a good idea, Isolde. Appreciating it doesn’t mean you have to reward me.”

She shook her head. “Just take it.”

It would insult her if I refused—so I closed my hands around the box.  

Isolde studied me for a moment. “It will suit you in the Night Court.”

“Perhaps I’ll stay here and help you revolutionize the world.”

Her mouth twisted to the side. “I could use an ally in the North.”

Was that why she had brought me? Why she’d given me the gift, treated my request for the Book so seriously? I hadn’t realized how alone we were down here, that I was beneath the ground, in a place that could be easily sealed, turned into a cage—

“You have nothing to fear from me,” she said, and I wondered if my face, my scent was that readable. “But I meant it—you have…sway with Elizabeth. And she is notoriously difficult to deal with. She gets what she wants, has plans she does not tell anyone about until after she has completed them, and does not apologize for any of it. Be her emissary to the You’ve seen my city. I have three others like it. Mael wrecked them almost immediately after he took over. All my people want now is peace, and safety, and to never have to look over their shoulders again. Other High Ladies have told me about Elizabeth—and warned me about her. But she spared me Under-the-Mountain. Avalon was my cousin, and we had forces gather in all of our cities to storm Under-the-Mountain. They caught her sneaking through the tunnels to meet with them. Elizabeth saw that in Avalon’s mind—I know she did. And yet she lied to his face, and defied him when he gave the order to turn her into a living ghost. Maybe it was for her own schemes, but I know it was a mercy. She knows that I am young—and inexperienced, and she spared me.” Isolde shook her head, mostly at herself. “Sometimes, I think Elizabeth…I think she might have been his whore to spare us all from his full attention.”

I would betray nothing of what I knew. But I suspected she could see it in my eyes—the sorrow at the thought.

“I know I’m supposed to look at you,” she continued, “and see that she’s made you into a pet, into a monster. But I see the kindness in you. And I think that reflects more on her than anything. I think it shows that you and she might have many secrets—”

“Stop,” I blurted. “Just—stop. You know I can’t tell you anything. And I can’t promise you anything. Elizabeth is High Lady. I merely serve in her court.”

Isolde glanced at the ground. “Forgive me if I’ve been too forward. I’m still learning how to play the games of these courts—to my advisers’ chagrin.”

“I hope you never learn how to play the games of these courts.”

Isolde held my gaze, face wary, but a bit bleak. “Then allow me to ask you a blunt question. Is it true you left Zaneli because she locked you up in her house?”

I tried to block out the memory, the terror and agony of my heart, my trust breaking apart. But I nodded.

“And is it true that you were saved from confinement by the Night Court?”

I nodded again.

Isolde said, “The Spring Court is my southern neighbor. I have tenuous ties with them. But unless asked, I will not mention that you were here.”

Thief, liar, manipulator. I didn’t deserve her alliance.

But I bowed my head in thanks. “Any other treasure troves to show me?”

“Are gold and jewels not impressive enough? What of your merchant’s eye?”

I tapped the box and smirked. “I might not have claimed my main prize, but I still got what I wanted. Now I’m curious to see how much your alliance is worth.”

Isolde laughed, the sound bouncing off the stone and wealth around us. “I didn’t feel like going to my meetings this afternoon, anyway.”

“What a reckless, wild High Lady.”

Isolde linked elbows with me again, patting my arm as she led me from the chamber. “You know, I think it might be very easy to love you too, Meliodas. Easier to be your friend.”

I made myself look away shyly as she sealed the door shut behind us, placing a palm flat on the space above the handle. I listened to the click of locks sliding into place.

She took me to other rooms beneath her palace, some full of jewels, others weapons, others clothes from eras long since passed. She showed me one full of books, and my heart leaped—but there was nothing in there. Nothing but leather and dust and quiet. No trickle of power that felt like the female beside me. No hint of the book I needed.

Isolde brought me to one last room, full of crates and stacks covered in sheets. And as I beheld all the artwork looming beyond the open door I said, “I think I’ve seen enough for today.”

She asked no questions as she resealed the chamber and escorted me back to the busy, sunny upper levels.

There had to be other places where it might be stored. Unless it was in another city.

I had to find it. Soon. There was only so long Elizabeth and Arthur could drag out their political debates before we had to go home. I just prayed I’d find it fast enough—and not hate myself any more than I currently did.

* * *

 

Elizabeth was lounging on my bed as if she owned it.

I took one look at the hands crossed behind her head, the long legs draped lazily over the edge of the mattress, and ground my teeth in irritation. “What the hell do you want?” I shut the door loud enough to emphasize the bite in my words.

“Flirting and giggling with Isolde did you no good, I take it?”

My temper flared, and I bared my teeth at her. “Better than your night with Apollo.” I chucked the box onto the bed beside her. “While you were off seducing the prince, I won the trust of the queen.”

That smile faltered as she sat up, flipping open the lid. “This isn’t the Book.”

“Had you allowed me to inform her of the plan, it would be.”

Her eyes widened, flared with rage and horror. “You _told—”_

“I _told,”_ I bit out, my lip curling in a snarl, “Isolde that the Book was something I, personally coveted to guard the wall and prevent war. She denied it to me not because of greed, but because I did not offer her enough _trust.”_ I scowled at her. “Isolde is a good female—a good High Lady. You should just _ask_ her for the damned Book; if she knew what we needed it for, she would gladly hand it over.”

Elizabeth snapped shut the lid, the sharp click resounding. “So she plies you with jewels and pours honey in your ear, and now you feel bad?”

“She wants your alliance—desperately. She wants to trust you, rely on you, believes that there is goodness in you. That’s far more than I can say for any of the other High Ladies.”

Elizabeth’s blue eyes shuttered, that blinding starlight winking out. “Well, Apollo is under the impression that his cousin is rather ambitious, so I’d be careful to read between her words.”

“Oh?” I raised my eyebrows, that burning, brewing spite that had festered in me throughout the day bubbling up. “Did he tell you that before, during, or after you took him to bed?”

Elizabeth rose to her feet with all the feral, fluid grace of a wolf. “Is that why you wouldn’t look at me? Because you think I let him fuck me for information?”

“Information or your own pleasure, I don’t care.”

She came around the bed, and I stood my ground, even as she stopped with hardly a hand’s breadth between us. “Jealous, Meliodas darling?” she crooned, tattoos rippling in the fading sunlight. I forced my gaze to stay on her eyes, not to sweep over that dark, devastatingly seductive gown, no doubt for the benefit of the prince of Beloe.

She was right—but so was I. “If _I’m_ jealous, then you’re jealous about Isolde and her honey pouring.”

Elizabeth’s teeth flashed, a razor-blade of a smile. “Do you think I particularly like having to flirt with a lonely, overworked male to get information about his court, his High Lady? Do you think I feel good about myself, doing that? Do you think I enjoy doing it just so you have the space of ply Isolde with your smile and pretty eyes, so we can get the Book and go home?”

“You seemed to enjoy yourself plenty last night.”

Her snarl was soft—vicious, deadly, somewhere between the cold, malicious High Lady the other courts knew and the fierce, proud dreamer that ruled Liones. “I didn’t take him to bed. He wanted to, but I didn’t so much as kiss him. I took him out for a drink in the city, let him talk about his life, his pressures, and brought him back to his room. I went no farther than the door. I waited for you at breakfast, but you slept in. Or avoided me, apparently. And I tried to catch your eye this afternoon, but you were _so good_ at shutting me out completely.”

I snarled right back, teeth bared, eyes blazing. “Is _that_ what go under your skin? That I shut you out, or that it was so easy for Isolde to get in?”

 “What got under my skin,” Elizabeth hissed, her breathing a bit uneven, “is that you _smiled_ at her.”

The rest of the world faded to gray, silvery mist as the words sank in. “You a _re_ jealous.”

She shook her head, stalking to the little table against the far wall and knocking back a glass of amber liquid. She braced her hands on the table, the powerful, ink-covered muscles of her back quivering as shadows gathered along the open back of her gown, those mighty wings struggling to take form.

“I heard what you told her,” she breathed after a moment, her gaze fixed on that empty glass. “That you thought it would be easy to fall in love with her. You meant it, too.”

“So?” It was the only thing I could think to say.

“I was jealous—of _that.”_ She inhaled, a shuddering breath so unlike her that I could do nothing but stare. “That I’m not…that sort of person. For anyone. That I _can’t_ be.” She shook her head, silver hair spilling over her shoulder. “The Summer Court has always been neutral; they only showed backbone during those years Under-the-Mountain. I spared Isolde’s life because I heard how she wanted to level the playing field between High Fae and lesser faeries. I’ve been trying to do that for years. Unsuccessfully, but…I spared her for that alone. And Isolde, with her neutral court…she will never have to worry about someone walking away because the threat against their live, their _children’s_ lives, will always be there.”

She raised her head, glittering blue eyes staring at me, filled with more emotion than I’d ever seen from her, lined with silver as tears glimmered in the moonlight. “So yes, Meliodas, I am jealous of her—because it will _always_ be easy for her. And she will never know what it is to look up at the night sky and wish.”

The Court of Dreams.

The people who knew that there was a price, and one worth paying, for that dream. The bastard-born warriors, the Illyria half-breed, the monster trapped in a beautiful body, the dreamer born into a court of nightmares…and the hunter with an artist’s soul.

And perhaps because it was the most vulnerable thing she’d ever said to me, perhaps it was the burning in my eyes, but I walked to where she stood over the little bar. I didn’t look at her as I took the decanter of amber liquid and poured myself a knuckle’s length, then refilled her own.

But I met her stare as I clinked my glass against hers, the crystal ringing clear and bright over the crashing sea far below, and said, “To the people who look at the stars and wish, Elizabeth.”

She picked up her glass, her gaze so piercing that I wondered why I had bothered blushing at all for Isolde.

Elizabeth clinked her glass against mine. “To the stars who listen—and the dreams that are answered.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what did you think? Like that glimpse into Elizabeth's heart you got at the end? I know I sure liked writing it! Drop me a kudos or a comment if you have questions, enjoyed it, or just want to chat! As always, thanks for reading!


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Night Court makes a plan, Meliodas uses _daemati _powers, and the hunt is on.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, we're moving out of the drama and a bit toward the _action! _This is gonna be fun!~__

Two days passed. Every moment of it was a balancing act of truth and lies. Elizabeth saw to it that I was not invited to the meetings she and Arthur held to distract my kind hostess, granting me time to scour the city of Beloe for any hint of the Book.

But not too eagerly, not too intently—not enough to be _caught._ I could not look too intrigued as I wandered the streets and docks, could not ask too many leading questions of the people I encountered about the treasures and legends of Beloe. Even when I awoke at dawn, I made myself wait until ra reasonable hour before setting out into the city, made myself take an extended bath to secretly practice that water-magic. And while crafting water-animals grew tedious after an hour…it came to me with shocking ease, moreso than darkness or wind or even flame. Perhaps it because of my proximity to Isolde, perhaps because of whatever previously-untouched affinity for water was already in my blood, my soul—though I certainly was in no position to ask.

Once breakfast had finally been served and consumed, I made sure to look a bit bored and aimless when I finally strode through the shining halls of the palace on my way out into the awakening city. Hardly anyone recognized me as I casually examined shops and bridges for any glimmer of a spell that _felt_ like Isolde, though I doubted they had reason to. It had been the High Fae—the nobility—that had been kept Under-the-Mountain, where I had been held captive. These people had been left here…to be tormented.

Scars littered the buildings, the streets, from what had been done in retaliation for their rebellion: burn marks, gouged bits of stone, entire buildings turned to rubble. The back of the castle, as Isolde had told us that first day, was indeed in the middle of being prepared. Three turrets were half-shattered, the tan stone charred and crumbling. No sign of the Book, from either the city or the palace. Workers toiled there—and throughout all of Beloe—to fix those broken areas.

Just as the people I saw—High Fae and faeries with scales and gills and long, spindly webbed fingers—all seemed to be slowly healing. There were scars and missing limbs on more people than I could count. But in their eyes…in their eyes, light gleamed.

I had saved them, too.

Freed them from whatever horrors had occurred during those five decades.

I had done a terrible, unforgivable thing to save them…but I had saved them.

And it would never be enough to atone, no matter what I did, never fully wash my hands of the blood of those two High Fae, but…I did not feel quite so heavy, despite not finding a glimmer of the Book’s presence, when I returned to the palace atop the hill on third night. There I would await Elizabeth’s report on the day’s meetings—and learn if she’d managed to discover anything, too.

As I strode up the steps of the palace, cursing myself for remaining so out of shape even with Gelda’s lessons, I spied Arthur perched on the ledge of a turret balcony, cleaning his nails. Guinevere leaned against the threshold of another tower balcony within jumping range—and I wondered if she was debating if she could clear the distance fast enough to push him off.

A cat playing with a dog—that’s what it was. Arthur was practically washing himself, silently daring her to get close enough to bite. I doubted Guinevere would like his claws.

Unless that was why she hounded him day and night.

I shook my head, continuing up the steps—watching as the tide swept out.

The sunset-stained sky caught on the water and tidal muck. A soft night breeze whispered past, barely enough to stir my hair, and I leaned into it, letting it cool the sweat on me. There had once been a time, when I was a child with a bow and a trapper’s sense in the mortal realm, when I’d dreaded the end of summer, had prayed it would hold out for as long as possible. Now the thought of endless warmth and sun made me…bored. Restless. Some part of my soul ached for the lights of Liones and the snowcapped mountains that had come to be my home.

I was about to turn back to the stairs when I beheld the bit of land that had been revealed near the tidal causeway. The small building that rested upon it. No wonder I hadn’t seen it before, as I’d never been up this high in the day when the tide was out… And during the rest of the day, from the muck and seaweed now gleaming on it, it would have been utterly covered.

Even now, it was half submerged. But I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.

I felt—like it was a little piece of home, wet and miserable-looking as it was, and I need only hurry along the muddy causeway between the quieter part of the city and the mainland—fast, fast, fast, so that I might catch it before it vanished beneath the waves again.

But the site was too visible for such recklessness, and from the distance, I couldn’t definitively tell if it _was_ the Book contained within. We’d have to be absolutely certain before we went in—to warrant the risks in searching. Absolutely certain.

I wished I didn’t, but I realized I already had a plan for that, too.

* * *

 

We dined with Isolde, Apollo, and Guinevere in their family dining room—a sure sign that the High Lady did indeed want that alliance, ambition or no.

Guinevere was studying Arthur as if she was trying to solve a riddle he’d posed to her, and he paid her no heed whatsoever as he debated with Apollo about the various translations of some ancient text. I’d been leading up to my question, telling Isolde of the things I’d seen in her city that day—particularly the fresh fish I’d bought for myself on the docks.

“You ate it right there,” Isolde repeated, raising her eyebrows.

Elizabeth had her head propped on a fist as I shrugged. “They fried with the other fishermen’s lunches. Didn’t charge me extra for it.”

Isolde let out an impressed laugh. “I can’t say I’ve ever done that—sailor or no.”

“You should,” I said, meaning every word. “It was delicious.”

I’d worn the necklace she’d given me, and Vervada and I had planned my clothes around it. We’d decided on gray—a soft, dove shade—to show off the glittering black. I had worn nothing else—no earrings, no bracelets, no pins or rings. Isolde seemed pleased by it, even though Guinevere had choked when she beheld me in an heirloom of her household. Apollo, surprisingly, had told me it suited me and didn’t fit in here, anyway. A backhanded compliment—but praise enough.

“Well, maybe I’ll go tomorrow. If you’ll join me.”

I grinned at Isolde—hyperaware now of every one I offered her, now that Elizabeth had mentioned it. Beyond giving me her brief, nightly updates about the Book, we hadn’t really spoken since that evening I’d filled her glass—though it had been because of our own full days, not awkwardness.

“I’d like that,” I said. “Perhaps we could go for a walk in the morning down the causeway when the tide is out. There’s that little building along the way—it looks simply _fascinating.”_

Apollo stopped speaking, piercing blue eyes fixed on me, but I went on, sipping my wine. “I figured since I’ve seen most of the city now, I could see it on my way to visit some of the mainland, too.”

Isolde’s glance at Apollo was all the confirmation I needed.

That stone building indeed guarded what we sought.

“It’s just a temple ruin,” Isolde sighed, waving it off with an air of ruefulness—her lie as smooth as silk. “Just mud and seaweed at this point. We’ve been meaning to repair it for years.”

“Maybe we’ll take the bridge, then. I’ve had enough of mud for a while.”

_Remember that I saved you, that I fought the Middengard Wyrm—forget the threat…_

Isolde’s golden eyes held mine—for a moment too long.

In the span of a blink, I hurled my silent, hidden power toward her, a spear aimed at her mind, at those wary eyes. There was a shield in place—a shield of sea glass and coral and the endless, undulating sea.

I _became_ that sea, became the whisper of waves against stone, the glimmer of sunlight on a gull’s white wings. I became _her—_ became that mental shield.

And then I was through it, a clear, dark tether showing me the way back should I need it. I let instinct, no doubt granted from Elizabeth, guide me forward. To see what I needed to see.

Isolde’s thoughts hit me like raindrops, bright and sharp and cold. _Why does he ask about the temple—has he truly given up on the Book, or was that a bluff to bring down my guard? Of all the things to bring up…_ Around me, they continued eating. _I_ continued eating. I willed my own face, in a different body, a different world, to smile pleasantly.

_Why did they want to come here so badly? Why ask about my trove?_

Like lapping waves, I sent my thoughts washing over hers:

_He is harmless. He is kind, and sad, and broken. You saw him with your people—you saw how he treated them. How he treats you. Mael did not break that kindness._

I poured my thoughts into her, tinting them with brine and the cries of terns—wrapping them in the essence that was Isolde, the essence she’d given to me so very long ago, to a dead body in the arms of the High Lady of Spring before a broken throne. In a broken court under a cold and unforgiving mountain, where seven High Ladies had re-Made a human into High Fae…and given him the very tools to destroy them, if he so wished. If _I_ so wished.

_Take him to the mainland tomorrow. That’ll keep him from asking about the temple. He saved Britannia. He is your friend._

My thoughts settled into her like a stone dropped into a pool—and as the wariness faded from her eyes, I knew my work was done. I hauled myself back, back, back, slipping through that ocean-and-pearl wall, reeling inward until my body was a cage around me.

Isolde smiled. “We’ll meet after breakfast. Unless Elizabeth wants me for more meetings?” Neither Guinevere nor Apollo so much as glanced at her. Had Elizabeth taken care of their own suspicions?

Lightning shot through my veins, even as my blood turned to ice at the realization settling over me—

Elizabeth waved a lazy hand, lips painted a deep-plum violet curving into an equally lazy grin. “By all means, Isolde, spend the day with my lord.”

 _My lord._ I ignored the two words, shut out my own marveling at my accomplishment, the slow-building horror at the invisible violation Isolde would never know about. I leaned forward, bracing my bare forearms on the cool wood table. “Tell me what there is to see on the mainland,” I suggested to Isolde, and steered her away from the temple on the tidal causeway.

* * *

 

Elizabeth and Arthur waited until the household lights dimmed before coming into my room. I’d been sitting in bed, counting down the minutes, forming my plan. None of the guest rooms looked out onto the causeway—as if they wanted no one to notice it.

Elizabeth arrived first, leaning against the closed door with the air of a cat who ate the canary—or the fish in this case, I supposed. “What a fast learner you are,” she purred, and despite the mischief in the words, there seemed some genuine pride. “It takes most _daemati_ years to master that sort of infiltration.”

My nails bit into my palms. “You knew—that I did it?” Speaking the words aloud felt too much, too…real.

A shallow nod. “And what expert work you did, using the essence of her to trick her shields, to get past them…” Her lips quirked up into the faintest smile. “Clever boy.”

“She’ll never forgive me,” I whispered, my gaze finding my hands. Killer hands.

“She’ll never know.” Elizabeth angled her head, silky silver hair sliding over her brow, eyes cast in shadow. “You get used to it. The sense that you’re crossing a boundary, that you’re violating them. For what it’s worth, I didn’t particularly enjoy convincing Guinevere and Apollo to find other matters more interesting.”

I dropped my gaze to the pale marble floor.

“If you hadn’t taken care of Isolde,” she went on, “the odds are we’d be knee-deep in shit right now.”

“It was my fault, anyway—I was the one who asked about the temple. I was only cleaning up my own mess.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“It never does. Or it shouldn’t. Far too many _daemati_ lose that sense.” That distant look in her eyes barely shifted, the light winking out like clouds covering the stars. “But here—tonight…the benefits outweighed the costs.”

“Is that also what you told yourself when you went into my mind?” I remembered the tug on that bond when Zaneli had destroyed her study, tried to strike me, the roaring on the other end of it as some shadow-touched force begged me to let them in. “What was the benefit then?”

Elizabeth pushed off the door, crossing to where I sat on the bed. “There are parts of your mind I left undisturbed, things that belong solely to you, and always will. And as for the rest…” Her jaw clenched. “You scared the living shit out of me for a very long while, Meliodas. Checking in that way…I couldn’t exactly stroll into the Spring Court and ask how you were doing, now, could I?”

Light footsteps sounded in the hall—Arthur. Elizabeth held my gaze, though, as she said, “I’ll explain the rest some other time.”

The door opened. “It seems like a stupid place to hide a book,” Arthur drawled by way of greeting as he entered, plopping unceremoniously onto the bed.

“And the last place one would look,” Elizabeth countered, prowling away from me to take a seat on the vanity stool before the window. “They could spell it easy enough against wet and decay. A place only visible for brief moments throughout the day—when the surrounding land is exposed for all to see? You could not ask for a better place. We have the eyes of thousands watching us.”

“So how do we get in?” I prompted, leaning forward.

“It’s likely warded against winnowing,” Elizabeth mused, bracing her forearms on her thighs. “I won’t risk tripping any alarms by trying. So we go in at night, the old-fashioned way. I can carry you both, then keep watch,” she added when I raised my eyebrows.

“How typical,” Arthur said, though there was an edge of fondness to the words, “to do the easy part, then leave the strapping young males to dig through mud and seaweed.” I snorted—despite his appearance, Arthur was older than the city of Liones and thus anything but _young,_ and I, well, I hadn’t been a child since I’d walked out into the winter. He grinned wickedly at me, before glancing at Elizabeth again.

“Someone needs to be circling high enough to see anyone approaching—or sounding the alarm. And to mask you both from sight.”

I frowned. “The locks respond to her touch; let’s hope they respond to mine.”

Arthur said, “When do we move?”

“Tomorrow night.” The words slipped out instinctively, immediately, the plan forming in my mind. “We note the guard’s rotations tonight at low tide—figure out where the watchers are. Who we might need to take out before we make our move.”

Delight sparked in Elizabeth’s eyes. “You think like an Illyrian.”

“I believe that’s her attempt at a compliment,” Arthur confided, looking utterly serious—as if Elizabeth wasn’t _right there,_ watching us with faint amusement. I choked on a laugh despite everything.

Elizabeth snorted, and shadows gathered around her as she loosened her grip on her power. “Vervada and Risling are already on the move inside the castle. I’ll take to the skies. The two of you should go for a midnight walk—considering how hot it is.”

Then she was gone, with a rustle of invisible wings and a warm, dark breeze.

Arthur’s lips were bloodred in the moonlight. I knew who would have the task of taking out any spying eyes—and wind up with a meal. My mouth dried out a bit. “Care for a stroll?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What d'you lot think? Liked it? Loathed it? Drop me a kudos or a comment, and tell me what you think!


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meliodas and Arthur hunt down the Book of Breathings. It goes...well. 
> 
> Until it all goes to shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is all action and Mel and Arthur bonding as friends! Yay, more Night Court family feels!

The following day was torture. Slow, unending, hot-as-hell torture.

Feigning interest in the mainland as I walked with Isolde, met her people, smiled at them, grew harder as the sun meandered across the sky, then finally began inching toward the sea. Liar, thief, deceiver—that’s what they’d call me soon.

I hoped they’d know, somehow—that Isolde would know—that we’d done it for their sake.

It sounded flimsy, foolish, condescending even in thought. Supreme arrogance, perhaps, to think that way, but…it was true. Given how quickly Isolde and Apollo had glanced at each other, guided me away from that temple…I’d bet they wouldn’t have handed over the Book even if I’d given them the whole truth. For whatever reasons of their own, they wanted it.

Maybe this new world of Isolde’s could only be built on trust. That world, however, would never have a chance to be born if all was wiped away beneath the King of Erebus’s armies.

That’s what I told myself over and over as we walked through her city—as I endured the greetings of her people. Perhaps not as joyous as those in Liones, but…a tentative, hard-won warmth. People who had endured the worst and now tried to move beyond it.

As I should be moving beyond my own darkness.

When the sun was at last sliding into the horizon, I confessed to Isolde that I was tired and hungry—and, ever the lady, she took me back, buying me a baked fish pie on the way home. She’d even eaten a fried fish at the docks that afternoon, as I’d suggested only the day before.

Dinner was worse.

We’d be gone before breakfast—but they didn’t know that. Elizabeth mentioned returning to the Night Court tomorrow afternoon, so perhaps an early departure wouldn’t be so suspicious. She’d leave a note about urgent business, thanking Isolde for her hospitality, and then we’d vanish home—to Liones. If it went according to plan.

We’d learned where the guards were stationed, how their rotations operated, and where their posts were on the mainland, too.

And when Isolde kissed my cheek good night, saying she wished it was not my last evening and perhaps she would see about visiting the Night Court soon…I almost fell to my knees to beg her forgiveness. Elizabeth’s hand on my back was a solid warning to keep it together—even as her face held nothing but that cool, deadly amusement.

I went to my room—and found Illyrian fighting leathers waiting for me. Along with that belt of Illyrian knives.

So I dressed for battle once again.

* * *

 

Elizabeth flew us in close to low tide, dropping us off before taking to the skies. There she would circle, monitoring the guards on the island and mainland while Arthur and I hunted.

The muck reeked, squelching and squeezing us with every step from the narrow causeway road to the little temple ruin. Barnacles, seaweed, and limpets clung to the dark gray stones—and every step into the sole interior chamber had that _thing_ in my chest chanting _where are you, where are you, where are you?_

Elizabeth and Arthur had checked for wards around the site—but found none. Odd, but fortunate. Thanks to the open doorway, we didn’t dare risk a light, but with the cracks in the stone overhead, the moonlight provided enough illumination. Knee-deep in muck, the tidal water slinking out over the stones, Arthur and I surveyed the chamber, barely more than forty feet wide.

“I can feel it,” I breathed. “Like—like a clawed hand running down my spine.” Indeed, my skin tingled, hair standing on end beneath my warm leathers. “It’s—sleeping.”

“No wonder they hid it beneath stone and mud and sea,” Arthur muttered, wrinkling his nose in distaste. The muck squelched as he turned in place, clinging to him with every step.

I shivered, the Illyrian knives on me now feeling as useful as toothpicks, and turned in a full circle, brow furrowing. “I don’t feel anything in the walls. But it’s here.”

Indeed, we both looked down at the same moment and cringed.

“We should have brought a shovel,” he groused.

“No time to get one.” The tide was fully out now. Every minute counted. Not just for the returning water—but the sunrise that was not too far off. Every step an effort through the firm grip of the mud, I honed in on that feeling, that call in my blood. I stopped in the center of the room—dead center. _Here, here, here,_ it whispered.

I leaned down, shuddering at the icy muck, at the bits of shell and debris that scraped my bare hands as I began hauling it away. “Hurry.”

Arthur hissed, but stooped to claw at the heavy, dense mud. Crabs and skittering things tickled my fingers. I refused to think about them.

So we dug, and dug, until we were covered in salty mud that burned our countless little cuts as we panted at a stone door. And a lead door.

Arthur swore at the sight of it. “Lead to keep its full force in, to preserve it. They used to line the sarcophagi of great rulers with it—because they thought they’d one day awaken.”

“If the King of Erebus goes unchecked with that Cauldron, they might very well.”

He shuddered, and pointed at the door. “It’s sealed.”

I wiped my hand on the only clean part of me—my neck—and used the other to scrape away the last bit of mud from the round door. Every brush against the lead spent pangs of cold through me. But _there_ —a carved whorl in the center of the door. A lock, untouched for centuries. “This has been here for a very long time,” I murmured.

Arthur nodded. “I would not be surprised if, despite the imprint of the High Lady’s power, Isolde and her predecessors had never set foot here—if the blood-spell to ward this place instantly transferred to them once they assumed power.”

“Wouldn’t you want to lock away an object of terrible power? So no one could use it for evil—or their own gain? Or perhaps they locked it away for their own bargaining chip, if it ever became necessary.” Once again, distaste crossed his lovely face, and I realized that Elizabeth might not be the only one disgusted by the Summer Court’s lack of backbone. “I have no idea why _they_ , of all courts, were granted the half of the Book in the first place.”

I shook my head and laid my hand flat on the whorl in the lead. A jolt went through me like lightning, and I grunted, bearing down on the door.

My fingers froze to it, as if the power were leeching my essence, drinking as Arthur drank, and I felt it hesitate, question—

_I am Isolde. I am summer, I am warmth, I am sea and sky and planted field._

I became every smile she’d given me, became the sunburnt gold of her eyes, the rich brown of her skin. I felt my own skin shift, felt my bones stretch and change. Until I _was_ her, and it was a set of female hands I now possessed, now pushed against the door. Until the essence of me became what I had tasted in that inner, mental shield of hers—sea and sun and brine. I did not give myself a moment to think of what power I might have just used. Did not allow any part of me that _wasn’t_ Isolde to shine through.

 _I am your mistress, and you_ will _let me pass._

The lock pulled harder and harder, and I could barely breathe—

 Then a click and a groan.

I shifted back into my own skin, and scrambled into the piled mud right as the door sank and swung away, tucking beneath the stones to reveal a spiral staircase drifting into a primordial gloom. And on a wet, salty breeze from below came the tendrils of _power._

Across the open stair, Arthur’s face had gone paler than I’d ever seen it, the golden mist in his eyes glowing bright. “I never saw the Cauldron,” he breathed, “but it must be terrible indeed if even a grain of its power feels…like this.”

Indeed, that power was filling the chamber, my head, my lungs—smothering and drowning and seducing—

“Quickly,” I said, and a small ball of faelight shot down the curve of the stairs, illuminating gray, worn steps slick with slime. I drew my hunting knife and descended, one hand braced on the freezing stone wall to keep from slipping.

I made it one rotation down, Arthur close behind, before faelight danced on waist-deep, putrid water. I scanned the passage at the foot of the stairs. “There’s a hall, and a chamber beyond that. All clear.”

“You first,” Arthur muttered.

I glared over my shoulder at him, and he shrugged. Bracing myself, I stepped into the dark water, biting down my yelp at the near-freezing temperature, the oiliness of it. Arthur gagged, the water nearly up to his waist.

“This place no doubt fills up swiftly once the tide comes back in,” he observed was we sloshed through the water, frowning at the many drainage holes in the walls.

We went only slow enough for him to detect any sort of ward or trap, but—there was none. Nothing at all. Though who would ever come down here, to such a terrible place?

Fools—desperate fools, that’s who.

The long stone hall ended in a second lead door. Behind it, that power coiled, overlaying Isolde’s imprint. “It’s in there.”

“Obviously.”

I scowled at him, both of us shivering. The cold was deep enough that I wondered if I might have already been dead in my human body. Or well on my way to it.

I laid my palm flat on the door. The sucking and questioning and _draining_ were worse this time. So much worse, and I had to brace my tattooed hand on the door to keep from falling to my knees and crying out as that cold power ransacked everything that I was.

 _I am summer, I am summer, I am summer._ I would give it no other answer.

I didn’t shift into Isolde this time—didn’t need to. Another click, another groan, and the lead door rolled into the wall, water merging and splashing as I stumbled back into Arthur’s waiting arms. “Asshole,” he hissed—not to me, but to the lock. “Never knew an inanimate object could be an asshole, but you, sir lock, are an _asshole.”_

“You’re talking to a lock,” I felt the need to point out, my head spinning. Another lock and I might very well pass out.

“Damn right I am.” He glared at the door. “Because it’s an asshole.”

The faelight bobbed into the chamber beyond us, and we both halted. The water had not merged with another source—but rather halted against an invisible threshold. The dry chamber beyond was empty save for a round dais and pedestal.

And a small, lead box atop it.

Arthur waved a tentative hand over the air where the water just—stopped. Then, satisfied there were no waiting wards or tricks, he stepped beyond, dripping onto the gray stones as he stood in the chamber, wincing a bit, and beckoned.

Wading as fast as I could, I followed him, half falling on the floor as my body adjusted to sudden air. I turned—and sure enough, the water was a black wall, as if there were a pane of glass keeping it in place.

“Let’s be quick about it,” he said, and I didn’t disagree.

We both carefully surveyed the chamber: floors, walls, ceilings. No signs of hidden mechanisms or triggers. Though no larger than an ordinary book, the lead box seemed to gobble up the faelight—and inside it, whispering… The seal of Isolde’s power, and the Book.

And now I heard, clear as if Arthur himself had whispered it:

_Who are you—want are you? Come closer—let me smell you, let me see you…_

We paused on opposite sides of the pedestal, the faelight hovering over the lid. “No wards,” Arthur said, his voice barely louder than the scrape of his boots on the stone. “No spells. You have to remove it—carry it out.” The thought of touching that box, getting close to that thing inside it— “The tide is coming back in,” Arthur added, surveying the ceiling.

“That soon?”

“Perhaps the sea knows. Perhaps the sea is the High Lady’s servant.”

And if we were caught down here when the water came in—

I did not think my little water-animals would help. Panic writhed in my gut, but I put it away and steeled myself, lifting my chin.

The box would be heavy—and cold.

_Who are you, who are you, who are you—_

I flexed my fingers and cracked my neck. _I am summer; I am sea and sun and green, growing things._

“Come on, come on,” Arthur murmured. Above, water trickled over the stones.

_Who are you, who are you, who are you—_

_I am Isolde, I am High Lady, I am your master._

The box quieted. As if that were answer enough.

I snatched the box off the pedestal, the metal biting into my hands, the power an oily smear through my blood.

An ancient, cruel voice hissed:

_Liar._

And the door slammed shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two in a day? I must be a wizard! Drop a kudos or a comment if you enjoyed it!


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Book will not be stolen as easily. Unfortunately for it, the Second and the Emissary of the Night Court have no plans to die so soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! Here we are, with another update! Enjoy~

_“NO!”_ Arthur screamed, at the door in an instant, his fist a radiant forge as he slammed it into the lead—once, twice.

And above—the rush and gargle of water tumbling downstairs, filling the chamber—

No, no, _no—_

I reached the door, sliding the box into the wide inside pocket of my leather jacket while Arthur’s blazing palm flattened against the door, burning, heating the metal, swirls and whorls radiating out through it as if they were a language all his own, and then—

The door burst open.

Only for a flood to come rushing in.

I grappled for the threshold, but missed as the water slammed me back, sweeping me under the dark, icy surface. The cold stole the breath from my lungs. _Find the floor, find the floor—_

My feet connected and I pushed up, gulping down air, scanning the dim chamber for Arthur. He was clutching the threshold, eyes on me, hand out—glowing bright.

The water already flowed up to my chest, and I rushed to him, fighting the onslaught flooding the chamber, willing that new strength into my body, my arms—

The water became easier, as if that kernel of power soothed its current, its wrath, but Arthur was now climbing up the threshold. “You have it?” he shouted over the roaring water.

I nodded, and I realized his outstretched hand wasn’t for me—but for the door he’d forced back into the wall. Holding it away until I could get out, and take the Book with me.

I shoved through the archway, Arthur slipping around the threshold—just as the door rolled shut, so violently that I wondered at the power he’d used to push it back. The only downside was that the water in the hall now had much less space to fill.

“ _Go_ ,” he snarled, but I didn’t wait for his approval before I grabbed him, hooking his feet around my stomach as I hoisted him into my back.

“Just—do what you have to,” I gritted out, neck craned above the rising water. Not too much farther to the stairs—the stairs that were now a cascade. Where the _hell_ was Elizabeth?

Arthur held out a palm in front of us, and the water bucked and trembled. Not a clear path, but a break in the current. I directed that kernel of Isolde’s power— _my_ power now—toward it. The water calmed further, straining to obey my command.

I ran, gripping his thighs probably hard enough to bruise. Step by step, water now raging down, now at my jaw, now at my mouth—

But I hit the stairs, almost slipping on the slick step, and Arthur’s gasp stopped me cold.

Not a gasp of shock, but a gasp for air as a wall of water poured down the stairs. As if a mighty wave had swept over the entire site. Even my own mastery over the element could do nothing against the fury of it.

I had enough time to gulp down air, to brace myself—

And watch as that door atop the stairs slid shut, sealing us in a watery tomb.

I was dead. I knew I was dead, and there was no way out of it.

I had consumed my last breath, and I would be aware for every second until my lungs gave out and my body betrayed me and I swallowed that fatal mouthful of water.

Arthur beat at my hands until I let go, until I swam after him, trying to calm my panicking heart, my lungs, trying to convince them to make each second count as Arthur reached the door and slammed his palm into it. Symbols flared—again and again. But the door held.

I reached him, shoving my body into the door, over and over, and the lead dented beneath my shoulders. Then I had talons, talons not claws, and I was slicing and punching at the metal—

My lungs were on fire. My lungs were seizing—

Arthur pounded on the door, that bit of faelight guttering, as if it were counting down his heartbeats one by one by one—

I had to take a breath, had to open my mouth and take a breath, had to ease the burning—

Then the door was ripped away.

And the faelight remained bright enough for me to see the three beautiful, ethereal faces hissing through fish’s teeth as their spindly webbed fingers snatched us out of the stairs, and into their frogskin arms.

Water-wraiths.

But I couldn’t stand it.

As those spiny hands grabbed my arm, I opened my mouth, water shoving in, cutting off thought and sound and breath. My body seized, those talons vanishing—

Debris and seaweed and water shot past me, and I had the vague sense of being hurtled through the water, so fast the water burned beneath my eyelids.

And then hot air—air, air, precious air, but my lungs were full of water as—

A fist slammed into my stomach and I vomited water across the waves. I gulped down air, blinking at the bruised purple and blushing pink of the morning sky. A sputter and gasp not too far from me, and I treaded water as I turned in the bay to see Arthur vomiting as well—but alive.

And in the waves between us, onyx hair plastered to their strange heads like helmets, the water-wraiths floated, staring with large, dark eyes. The sun was rising beyond them—the city encircling us stirring.

The one in the center said, “Our sister’s debt is paid, Cursebreaker.”

And then they were gone.

Arthur was already swimming for the distant mainland shore.

Praying they didn’t come back and make a meal of us, I hurried after him, trying to keep my movements small to avoid detection.

We both reached a quiet, sandy cove and collapsed.

* * *

 

A shadow blocked out the sun, and a boot toed my calf. “What,” Elizabeth demanded, her voice like ice, “are you two doing here?”

I opened my eyes to find Arthur hoisting himself up on his elbows. “Where the _hell_ were you?” he forced out through gritted teeth, looking utterly uncharitable. I felt much the same.

“You two set off every damned trigger in the place. I was hunting down each guard who went to sound the alarm.” My throat was ravaged—and sand tickled my cheeks, my bare hands. “I thought you had it covered,” she added to him, blue eyes narrowing. “You _said_ you had it covered.”

“Yeah, well, that was _before_ that place or that _book_ nearly nullified my powers,” he hissed. “We almost drowned.”

Her gaze shot to me, brilliant blue glinting with a thousand things I couldn’t quite place. “I didn’t feel it through the bond—”

“It probably nullified that, too, you _imbecile,”_ Arthur snapped.

Her eyes flickered. “Did you get it?” Not at all concerned that we were half-drowned and had very nearly died. Of course not.

I touched my jacket—the heavy metal lump within. Relief flared in those blue eyes, and she said, “Good.”

I looked behind her at the sudden urgency in her tone. Sure enough, in the castle across the bay, people were darting about. Isolde—Isolde would know, the alliance lost—

“I missed some guards,” she gritted out, grabbing both our arms—and we vanished.

The dark wind was cold and roaring, and I had barely enough strength to cling to her. It gave out entirely, along with Arthur’s, as we landed in the town house foyer—and we both collapsed to the wood floor, spraying sand and water on the carpet.

Gelda shouted from the from the dining room behind us, “What the _hell?”_

I glared up at Elizabeth, who merely stepped toward the breakfast table. “I’m waiting for an explanation, too,” she said to the wide-eyed Court of Dreams, before turning back toward us once more.

But I turned to Arthur, who was still hissing on the floor, like a scalded cat. His red-rimmed eyes narrowed. _“How?”_

“During the Tithe, the water-wraith emissary said they had no gold, no food with which to pay the toll. They were starving.” Every word ached, and I thought I might vomit again, all over her expensive carpet. Elizabeth would deserve it, though—even if she ended up taking it out of my wages. “So I gave him some of my jewelry to pay her dues. She swore that she and her sisters would never forget the kindness.”

“Can someone explain, please?" Diane called from the room beyond.

We remained on the floor as Arthur began quietly laughing, his body shaking with the force of it.

 _“What?”_ I demanded, bristling.

“Only an immortal with a mortal heart would have given one of those horrible beasts the money. It’s so…” Arthur laughed again, his shock of bright hair plastered with sand and seaweed. For a moment, he looked almost… _human._ “Whatever luck you live by, Meliodas…thank the Cauldron for it.”

The others were all watching, but I felt a chuckle whisper out of me—followed by a laugh, as rasping and raw as my lungs. But a _real_ laugh, perhaps edged by hysteria. Hysteria—and profound, overwhelming relief.

We looked at each other, and laughed again.

 _“Boys,”_ Elizabeth purred—a silent order.

I groaned as I staggered to my feet, sand falling everywhere with the movement, and offered a hand to Arthur to help him rise. His grip was firm, but those inhuman eyes were surprisingly tender as he squeezed it before snapping his fingers.

We were both instantly clean and warm, our clothes dry. All save for a wet patch over my heart, tucked beneath my jacket—where that box waited.

My companions were solemn-faced as I approached and reached inside that pocket. The metal bit into my fingers, so cold it burned.

I dropped it onto the table, unceremonious and irreverent. It was strangely amusing to watch the Night Court jump at the thud, the strongest warriors in the world all recoiling and swearing.

Except Elizabeth, who crooked a finger at me, eyes gleaming. “One last task, Meliodas. Unlock it, please.”

Well, at least she’d said please.

My knees were buckling, my head spinning and mouth bone-dry and full of salt and grit, but…I wanted to be rid of it, the monstrous thing before me. So I slid into a chair, tugging that hateful box to me, and placed a hand on top.

 _Hello, liar,_ it purred.

“Hello,” I whispered.

_Will you read me?_

“No.”

The others didn’t say a word—though I felt their confusion shimmering in the room. Only Elizabeth and Arthur watched me closely, as if they could hear it too.

 _Open,_ I said silently.

_Say please._

“Please,” I hissed.

The box—the Book—was silent. Then it breathed, _Like calls to like, little faerie._

“Open,” I gritted out.

_Unmade and Made; Made and Unmade—that is the cycle, O Seeker. Like calls to like._

I pushed my hand harder against it, so tired I didn’t care about the thoughts tumbling out, the bits and pieces that were a part of and not part of me: heat and water and ice and light and shadow.

 _Cursebreaker,_ it called to me, and the box clicked open.

I sagged back in my chair, grateful for the roaring fire in the nearby fireplace. Ice and iron, that was what the Book felt like. Death and cold and steel.

Gelda’s scarlet eyes were dark. “I never want to hear that voice again.”

“Well, you will,” Elizabeth said blandly, lifting the lid. “Because you’re coming with us to see those mortal queens as soon as they deign to visit us. Or the brothers, actually.”

I was too tired to think about that—about what we had left to do, about my brothers, far away on the mortal side of the wall, about the havoc Gelda would no doubt wreak on my youngest brother there. I peered into the box.

It was not a book—not with paper and leather, ink and glue.

It had been formed of dark metal plates bound on three rings of gold, silver, and bronze, each word carved with painstaking precision in an alphabet I could not recognize. Yes, it indeed turned out my reading lessons were unnecessary—for this task, at least.

Elizabeth left it inside the box as we all peered in—and recoiled. Only Arthur remained staring at it. The blood drained from his face entirely.

“What language is that?” Diane asked.

I thought Arthur’s hands might have been shaking, but he shoved them into his pockets before I could see. “It is no language of this world.”

Only Elizabeth was unfazed by the shock on his face, as if she’d suspected what the language might be. As if that was why she’d picked him to be part of this hunt.

“What is it, then?” The question came from King this time, the spymaster leaning forward to glimpse the Book again.

He stared and stared at the Book—as if it were a ghost, as if it were a miracle—and said, “It is the Leshon Hakodesh. The Holy Tongue.” Those eyes of leashed lightning shifted to Elizabeth, and I realized he’d understood, too, why he’d gone.

Elizabeth gazed at the Book, her face thoughtful. “I heard a legend that it was written in a tongue of mighty beings who feared the Cauldron’s power and made the Book to combat it. Mighty beings who were here…and then vanished.” Mighty beings of another world—like Arthur himself. “You are the only one who can decode it.”

It was Diane who warned, “Don’t play those sorts of games, Elizabeth.”

But she shook her head, silver hair pinned back in a tight braid down her spine—the High Lady dressed for war, I realized. “Not a game. It was a gamble that Arthur would be able to read it—and a lucky one.”

Arthur’s nostrils flared, fire sparking in those brilliant eyes, and for a moment I wondered if he might throttle her for not telling him her suspicions, that the Book might indeed be more than the key to our own salvation.

Elizabeth smiled at him in a way that dared him to try.

Even Gelda slid a hand toward her fighting knife—as though she’d leap to take the blow for her sister, fight by her side against a monster willing at last to unleash himself.

But then Elizabeth added, “I thought, too, that the Book might also contain the spell to free you—and send you home. If they were the ones who wrote it in the first place.”

Arthur’s throat bobbed—slightly.

Gelda’s whisper of, “Shit,” was audible in the dead-silence of the room.

Elizabeth went on, “I did not tell you my suspicions, because I did not want to get your hopes up. But if the legends about the language were indeed right… Perhaps you might find what you’ve been looking for, Arthur.”

“I need the other piece before I can begin decoding it.” His voice was raw.

“Hopefully our request to the mortal queens will be answered soon,” she said, frowning at the sand and water staining the foyer. “And hopefully the next encounter will go better than this one.”

His mouth tightened, but his eyes were blazing bright. “Thank you.”

Ten thousand years in exile—alone. It sounded like hell…and now he had a way out. I could hardly fault him for the light that burned off him for that moment, the hope that gleamed in eyes of wisteria and gold.

Diane sighed—a loud, dramatic sound no doubt meant to break the heavy silence—and complained about wanting the full story of what happened.

But King pointed out, “Even if the book can nullify the Cauldron…there’s Vivian to contend with.”

We all looked at him, some vestige of confusion crossing all our faces. “That’s the piece that doesn’t fit,” King clarified, tapping a scarred finger on the table. “Why resurrect her in the first place? And how does the king keep her bound? What does the king _have_ over Vivian to keep her loyal—especially given that she fought for the humans in the last war?”

“I’d considered that,” Elizabeth answered, taking a seat across from me at the table, right between her two siblings. Of course she had considered it—was there anything she didn’t consider? Elizabeth shrugged. “Vivian was…obsessive in her pursuits of things. She died with many of those goals left unfinished.”

Diane’s face paled a bit. “If she suspects Gilthunder is alive—”

“Odds are, Vivian believes Gilthunder is gone,” Elizabeth said before Diane could finish, fingers drumming on the table. “And who better to raise her former lover than a king with a Cauldron able to resurrect the dead?”

“Would Vivian ally with Erebus just because she thinks Gilthunder is dead and wants him back?” Gelda asked dubiously, bracing her arms on the table. “She loathed the Fae.”

“She’d do it get revenge on Margaret for winning his heart,” Elizabeth answered. She shook her head. “We’ll discuss this later.” I made a note to ask her who these people were, what their history was—to ask Elizabeth why she’d never hinted Under-the-Mountain that she _knew_ the woman behind the eye in Mael’s ring. After I’d had a bath. And water. And a nap.

But they all looked to me and Arthur again—still waiting for the story. Brushing a few grains of sand off, I let Arthur launch into the tale, each word more unbelievable and fantastical than the last.

Across the table, I lifted my gaze from my clothes and found Elizabeth’s eyes already on me.

I inclined my head slightly, and lower my shield only enough to say down the bond: _To the dreams that are answered._

A heartbeat later, a sensual caress trailed along my mental shields—a polite request. I let it drop, let her in, and her lilting, melodic voice filled my head. _To the hunters who remember to reach back for those less fortunate—and water-wraiths who swim very, very fast._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop a kudos or a comment if you enjoyed! The next update will come soon enough!


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth and Meliodas face the aftermath of stealing from the Summer Court. One of them takes it a bit harder than the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand I'm back!

Arthur took the Book to wherever it was he lived in Liones, leaving the five of us to eat. While Elizabeth told them of our visit to the Summer Court, I managed to scarf down breakfast before the exhaustion of staying up all night, unlocking those doors, and very nearly dying hit me. When I awoke, the house was empty, the afternoon sunlight warm and golden, and the day so unusually warm and lovely that I brought a book down to the small garden in the back.

The sun eventually shifted, shading the garden to the point of frigidness again. Not quite willing to give up the sun yet, I trudged the three levels of rooftop patio to watch it set.

Of course—of _course—_ Elizabeth was already lounging in one of the white-painted iron chairs, an arm slung over the back while her other hand idly gripped a glass of some sort of liquor, a crystal decanter full of it set on the table before her. Her wings were draped behind her on the tile floor, and I wondered if she was also taking advantage of the unusually mild day to sun them as I cleared my throat.

“I know you’re there,” she said by way of greeting, without even turning from the view of the Vanya and the red-old sea beyond.

I scowled. “If you want to be alone, I can go.”

She jerked her chin at the empty seat at the iron table. Not a glowing invitation, but…I sat down.

There was a wood box beside the decanter—and I might have thought it was something for whatever she was drinking had I not noticed the dagger fashioned of mother-of-pearl in the lid. Had I not sworn I could smell the sea and heat and soil that was Isolde. “What is that?”

Elizabeth drained her glass, held up a hand—the decanter floating to her on a phantom wind—and poured herself another knuckle’s length before she spoke.

“I debated it for a good while, you know,” she murmured, staring out at her city. “Whether I should just ask Isolde for the Book, as you did. But I thought she might very well say no, then sell the information to the highest bidder. I thought she might say yes, and it’d still wind up with too many people knowing our plans and the potential for that information to get out. And at the end of the day, I needed the _why_ of our mission to remain secret for as long as possible.” She drank again, and dragged a hand through her long silver hair, bleached white in the sunlight. “I didn’t like stealing from her. I didn’t like hurting her guards. I didn’t like vanishing without a word, when, ambition or no, she did truly want an alliance. Maybe even friendship. No other High Ladies have ever bothered—or dared. But I think…” Another drink, a dark grimace. “I think Isolde wanted to be my friend.”

I glanced between her and the box and repeated, “What is that?”

“Open it.”

I gingerly flipped back the lid.

Inside, nestled on a bed of white velvet, three rubies glimmered, each the size of a chicken egg. Each so pure and richly colored that they seemed crafted of—

“Blood rubies,” she said.

I pulled back the fingers that had been inching toward the stones.

“In the Summer Court, when a grave insult has been committed, they send a blood ruby to the offender. An official declaration that there is a price on their head—that they are now hunted, and will soon be dead. The box arrived at the Court of Nightmares an hour ago.”

Mother above. “I take it one of these has my name on it. And yours. And Arthur’s.”

The lid flipped up on a dark wind. “I made a mistake,” she muttered. I opened my mouth, but she went on, “I should have wiped the minds of the guards and let them continue on. Instead, I knocked them out. It’s been a while since I had to do any sort of physical…defending like that, and I was so focused on my Illyrian training that I forgot the other arsenal at my disposal. They probably awoke and went right to her.”

“She would have noticed the Book was missing soon enough.”

“We could have denied that we stole it and chalked it up to coincidence.” She drained her glass. “I made a mistake.”

“It’s not the end of the world if you do that every now and then.” Mother knew I’d made thousands in the last week alone.

“You’ve been told you are now public enemy number one of the Summer Court and you’re _fine_ with it?”

I blew out a sharp breath. “No.” I’d betrayed Isolde just as much as she had. “But I don’t blame you.”

She loosed a breath of her own, staring out at her city as the warmth of the day succumbed to winter’s bite once more. It didn’t matter to her, clearly—she’d failed, and that failure would haunt her for a long while yet, no doubt.

“Perhaps you could return the Book once we’ve neutralized the Cauldron,” I suggested. “Offer an apologize.”

Elizabeth snorted. “No. Arthur will get that book for as long as he needs it.” Something swimmed in midnight-blue eyes—self-loathing, I thought it might be, but it vanished before I could tell. “I’ve gone back on enough promises without taking that from him.”

“Then make it up to Isolde in some way. Clearly, _you_ wanted to be her friend as much as she wanted to be yours. You wouldn’t be so upset otherwise.”

Her lips twitched into a snarl. “I’m not upset. I’m pissed off.”

“Semantics.”

She gave me a strange half-smile. “Feuds like the one we just started can last centuries-millennia. If that’s the cost of stopping this war, helping Arthur…I’ll pay it.”

She’d pay, I knew, with everything she had. All of her own hopes, her own happiness, her own peace and dreams and desires…she’d give them all up in a heartbeat, if it meant the world would survive. “Do the others know—about the blood rubies?”

“King was the one who brought them to me. I’m debating how I’ll tell Arthur.”

“Why?”

Darkness filled those remarkable, midnight-blue eyes. “Because his answer would be to go to Beloe and wipe the city off the map.”

I shuddered at that—at the kind, gentle, mischievous male I’d glimpsed unleashing the burning hell inside him upon the city. I didn’t doubt he’d do it, though. Not anymore.

“Exactly,” she said.

I stared out at Liones with her, listening to the sounds of the day wrapping up—and the night unfolding. Beloe felt rudimentary, primitive by comparison.

“I understand,” I said finally, rubbing some warmth into my now-chilled hands, “why you did what you had to in order to protect this city.” Imagining the destruction that had been wreaked upon Beloe here in Liones made my blood run cold. Her eyes slid to me, wary and dull—remembering what I’d said that first walk through the city, the resentment I’d spat at her. I swallowed. “And I understand why you will do anything to keep it safe during the times ahead.”

“And your point is?”

A bad day—this was a bad day, I realized, for her. This was what her ghosts, her demons looked like when they overran her masks. I didn’t scowl at the bite in her words. “Get through this war, Elizabeth, and then worry about Isolde and the blood rubies. Nullify the Cauldron, stop the king from shattering the wall and enslaving the human realm again, and then we’ll figure out the rest after.”

“You sound as if you plan to stay here for a while.” A bland, but edged question.

“I can find my own lodging, if that’s what you’re referring to. Maybe I’ll use that generous paycheck to get myself something lavish.”

_Come on. Wink at me. Play with me. Just—stop looking like that._

All she said was, “Spare your paycheck. Your name has already been added to the list of those approved to use my household credit. Buy whatever you wish. Buy yourself a whole damn if you want.”

I ground my teeth, and maybe it was _panic—_ panic or desperation for something equally stupid, but I purred sweetly, “I saw a pretty shop across the Vanya the other day. It sold what looked to be lots of lacy little things. Am I allowed to buy that on your person credit, too, or does that come out of my personal funds?”

Those deep blue eyes, a starlit night sky in the depths of hell, again drifted to me. “I’m not in the mood.”

There was no humor, no mischief. I could go warm myself by a fire inside, but…

She had stayed, on my bad days. Bad weeks—bad _months._ And she’d fought for me.

Week after week, she’d fought for me, even when I had no reaction, even when I had barely been able to speak or bring myself to care if I lived or died or ate or starved. When Under-the-Mountain had been swallowing me whole, and Zaneli had only caged me further, allowed my darkness to swallow me for and remained willfully blind to it all, she’d fought and pulled me free. I couldn’t leave her to her own dark thoughts, her own guilt, her monsters. She’d shouldered them alone long enough.

So I held her gaze. “I never knew Illyrians were such morose drunks.”

“I’m not drunk—I’m drinking,” she snapped, her teeth flashing a bit.

“Again, semantics.” I leaned back in my seat, wishing I’d brought my coat. “Maybe you should have slept with Apollo after all—so you could be sad and lonely together.”

“So you’re entitled to have as many bad days as you want, but I can’t get a few damn hours?”

“Oh, take however long you want to mope. I was going to invite you to come shopping with me for said lacy little unmentionables, but…sit up here forever, if you must.”

She didn’t respond.

I pushed on, “Maybe I’ll send a few to Isolde—with an offer to wear them for her if she forgives us. Maybe she’ll take those blood rubies right back.”

Her mouth barely, _barely_ tugged up at the corners. “She’d see that as a taunt.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I sighed, draping myself over the iron chair. “I gave her a few smiles and she handed over a family heirloom. I bet she’d give me the keys to her territory if I showed up wearing those undergarments.”

“Someone thinks _mighty_ highly of himself.”

“Why shouldn’t I? You seem to have difficulty _not_ staring at me day and night.”

There it was—a kernel of truth and a question beneath.

“Am I supposed to deny,” she drawled, but _something_ sparked in those eyes, “that I find you attractive?”

“You’ve never said it.”

“I’ve told you many times, and quite frequently, just how attractive I find you.”

I shrugged, even as I thought of all those times—when I’d dismissed them as teasing compliments, nothing more. “Well, maybe you should do a better job of it.”

The gleam in her eyes turned into something _predatory,_ shifting imperceptibly from High Lady to pure Illyrian. A thrill went through me as she braced her powerful, tattooed arms on the table and purred, “Is that a _challenge,_ Meliodas?”

I held that predator’s gaze—the gaze of the most powerful female in Britannia. “ _Is_ it, Elizabeth?”

Her pupils flared. Gone was the quiet sadness, the isolated guilt. Only that lethal focus—all on me. On my mouth, the bob of my throat as I tried to keep my breathing even, the flush creeping up my neck. She said, slow and soft, “Why don’t we go down to that store right now, Meliodas, so you can try on those lacy little things—so I can help you pick which one to send to Isolde.”

A flicker of electricity coursed through my veins, wicked and burning. Such a dangerous line we walked together, the hunter and the night. The ice-kissed night wind rustled our hair, and I wondered absently if she’d meant it, or if it was another piece of this dangerous dance.

But Elizabeth’s gaze cut skyward—and a heartbeat later, King shot from the clouds like a bolt of living steel.

I wasn’t sure whether I should be relieved for not, but I left before King could land, giving the High Lady and her spymaster some privacy. As soon as I entered the dimness of the stairwell, the heat rushed from me, leaving a sick, cold feeling in my stomach.

There was flirting, and then there was…this.

I had loved Zaneli. Loved her so much I had not minded destroying myself for it—for her. And then everything had happened, and now I was here, and…and I might have very well gone to that pretty shop with Elizabeth.

I could almost see what would have happened, the images flickering through my mind with crystalline clarity—the way her eyes would darken, the red lace that would be selected, the dim lights and soft, sweet smoke, and the whisper of darkness along my skin. Her eyes, her hands, her voice, her _mouth—_

I swore as I slammed into the post of the stairwell landing. And I blinked—blinked as the world returned, and I realized…

I glared at the eye tattooed in my hand and hissed both with my tongue and that silent voice within the bond itself, _“Prick.”_

In the back of my mind, a sensual female voice chuckled with midnight laughter.

My face burning, cursing her for the vision she’d slipped past my mental shields, I reinforced the barriers once again as I entered my room. And took a very, very cold bath.

* * *

 

I ate with Diane that night beside the crackling fire in the townhouse dining room, Elizabeth and the others off somewhere doing gods knew what (and good riddance, after today, really). When she finally asked why I kept scowling every time Elizabeth’s name was mentioned, I told her about the vision, the sensations she’d sent into my mind. She’d laughed, damn her, until wine came out of her nose, and when I scowled at _her,_ she told me I should be proud: when Elizabeth was prepared to brood, it took nothing short of a miracle to get her out of it.

I tried to ignore the slight sense of triumph—even as I climbed into bed.

I was just starting to drift off, well past two in the morning thanks to chatting with Diane on the couch in the living room for hours and hours about all the great and terrible places she’d seen, when the house let out a groan. Like the wood itself was being warped, the house began to moan and shudder, the colored glass lights in my room tinkling.

I jolted upright, twisting to the open window. Clear skies, nothing—

Nothing but the darkness leaking into my room from the hallway door.

I knew that darkness. A kernel of it lived in me.

It rushed in from the cracks of the door like a flood. The house shuddered again.

I vaulted from the bed, yanked the door open, and darkness swept past me on a phantom wind, full of stars and flapping wings and—pain.

So much pain, and despair, and guilt and fear.

I hurtled into the hall, utterly blind in the impenetrable dark. But there was a thread between us, and I followed it—to where I knew her room was. I fumbled for the hand, then—

More night and stars and wind poured out, my hair whipping around me, and I lifted an arm to shield my face as I edged into the room. “Elizabeth.”

No response. But I could _feel_ her there—feel that lifeline between us. I followed it until my shins banged into what had to be her bed. _“Elizabeth,”_ I called over the wind and dark. The house shook, the floorboards clattering under my feet. I patted the bed, feeling sheets and blankets and down, and then—

Then a hard, taut female body. But the bed was enormous, and I couldn’t a grip on her. _“Elizabeth!”_

Around and around the darkness swirled, the beginning and end of the world.

I scrambled onto the bed, lunging for her, feeling what was her arm, then her stomach, then her shoulders. Her skin was freezing as I gripped her shoulders and shouted her name. No response, and I slid a hand up her neck, to her mouth—to make sure she was still breathing, that this wasn’t her power floating away from her—

Icy breath hit my palm. And, bracing myself, I rose up on my knees, aiming blindly, and slapped her.

My palm stung—but she didn’t move. I hit her again, _pulling_ on that bond between us, shouting her name down it like it was a tunnel, banging on that wall of ebony adamant within her mind, roaring at it. _Come back come back come back come back to me, damnit—_

A crack in the dark.

And then her hands were on me, flipping me, pinning me with expert skill to the mattress, a taloned hand at my throat.

I went still. “Elizabeth,” I breathed. _Elizabeth,_ I echoed through the bond, putting a hand against that inner shield.

The dark shuddered.

I threw my own power out—black to black, night to night, soothing her darkness, the rough edges, willing it to calm, to soften. My darkness sang her own a lullaby, a song my mother had taught me long ago, before Father had died, before my brothers were born, when it was just her and me.

“It was a dream,” I whispered. Her hand was so cold, so icy it burned. “It was a dream.”

Again, the dark paused. I sent my own veils of night brushing up against it, running star-flecked hands down it.

And for a heartbeat, the inky blackness cleared enough that I saw her face above me—drawn, lips pale, midnight-blue eyes wide. Scanning me, searching me— _threat or friend?_

“Meliodas,” I said. “I’m Meliodas.” Her breathing was jagged, uneven. I gripped the wrist that held my throat—held, but didn’t hurt. “You were dreaming.”

I willed that darkness inside myself to echo it, to sing those raging feared to sleep, to brush up against that ebony wall within her mind, gentle and soft and understanding…

Then, like snow shaken from a tree, her darkness fell away, taking mine with it.

Moonlight poured in—and the sounds of the city.

Her room was similar to mine, the bed so big it must have been built to accommodate wings, but all tastefully, comfortably appointed. And she was nearly naked above me, wearing only some sheer shift of black silk. I didn’t dare look lower than the tattoos creeping up her neck.

“Meliodas,” she rasped, her voice painfully hoarse. As though she’d been screaming.

“Yes,” I said. She studied my face—the taloned hand at my throat. And released me immediately.

I lay there, staring up at where she now knelt on the bed, rubbing her hands over her face. My traitorous eyes indeed dared to sweep lower than her chest—but my attention snapped on the twin tattoos on each of her knees: a towering mountain crowned by three stars. Beautiful—but brutal, somehow.

“You were having a nightmare,” I continued, easing into a sitting position. Like some dam had been cracked open inside me, I glanced at my hand—and willed it to vanish into shadow and wind. It did.

Half a thought scattered the darkness again.

Her hands, however, still ended in long, black talons—and her feet…they ended in claws, too. The wings were out, slumped down behind her, and I wondered how close she’d come to shifting into the beast that lay beneath the skin of all High Ladies. A beast she’d once told me she hated.

She lowered her hands, talons fading into fingers, and stared down at her ink-touched skin. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s why you’re staying here, not at the House of Wind with the others,” I realized, and that _thing_ in my chest cracked and broke. “You don’t want them seeing this.”

“I normally keep it contained to my room. I’m sorry it woke you.”

I fisted my hands in my lap to keep from reaching out to her, embracing her. “How often does it happen?”

Elizabeth’s blue eyes met mine, lined with silver in the moonlight, and I knew the answer before she croaked, “As often as you.”

I swallowed hard. “What did you dream of tonight?”

She shook her head, looking toward the window—to where snow had dusted the nearby rooftops. “There are memories from Under-the-Mountain, Meliodas, that are best left unshared. Even with you.”

She’d shared enough horrific things with me that they had to be…beyond nightmares, then. But I put a hand on her elbow, nearly-bare skin and all. “When you want to talk, let me know. I won’t tell the others.” Not because I didn’t trust them, but because this…this was a hell none of them knew, just as I didn’t know their demons, their nightmares, their hells.

I made to slither off the bed, but she grabbed my hand, keeping it against her arm. “Thank you, Meliodas. For—everything.”

I studied the hand, the ravaged face. Such pain lingered there—and exhaustion. The face she never let anyone see.

I pushed up onto my knees and kissed her cheek, her skin warm and soft beneath my mouth. It was over before it started, but—but how many nights had I wanted someone to do the same for me? To offer that smallest, gentlest comfort?

Her eyes were a bit wide as I pulled away, and she didn’t stop me as I eased off the bed. I was almost out the door when I turned back to her.

Elizabeth still knelt, wings drooping across the white sheets, head bowed and silver spilling over her shoulders, her tattoos stark against her golden skin. A dark, fallen goddess—praying for salvation.

The painting flashed into my mind.

Flashed—and stayed there, glimmering, before it faded.

But it remained there, shining faintly, in that hole inside my chest.

The hole that was slowly starting to heal over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liked it? Curious? Want more? Drop a comment or a kudos! Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is a fic i've had in my brain for awhile and have finally started publishing! however, i won't be publishing chapters beyond this for a little while; as of now, i only have two full chapters written out of...forty-ish? but i hope you enjoy it and please, please, please leave a review!
> 
> (yes, elizabeth is taking rhys's role and meliodas is taking feyre's. it's a bit of a role reversal--that's what i meant by tagging it as clanswap au)


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